Tony J Olsen
Electrician in Salt Lake City, UT

2010018, Jul 29, 2010

Jan 29, 2009

12/362321

Debra S. Woolsey - Salt Lake City UT, US
Tony L. Olsen - Salt Lake City UT, US
Gordon K. Madson - Salt Lake City UT, US

H01L 29/78, H01L 21/336

257330, 438589, 257E2141, 257E29262

Semiconductor devices and methods for making such devices using nitride consumption LOCOS oxidation are described. The semiconductor devices contain a planar field oxide structure that has been grown using a nitride layer as an oxidation mask. Once the field oxide structure has been grown, the nitride mask is not etched away, but rather converted to an oxide layer by an oxidation process using radicals of hydrogen and oxygen. The semiconductor devices also contain a shielded gate trench MOSFET that can be created using an oxide layer with an overlying nitride layer as the channel (sidewall) gate dielectric. An inter-poly-dielectric (IPD) layer can be formed from a thermally grown oxide which uses the nitride layer as a oxidation mask. The thickness of the IPD layer can be adjusted to any thickness needed with minimal effect of the channel gate dielectric layer. An oxidation process using radicals of hydrogen and oxygen can be preformed to consume the nitride layer and form the gate oxide in the channel region. Since the gate channel nitride acts as a barrier to the oxidation, the IPD oxide layer can be grown to any needed thickness with minimal oxidation to the channel gate and the nitride layer can be removed without any etching processes. Other embodiments are described.