Patent ID: 11862665
Assignee: TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY LTD.
Field: Semiconductors (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A method of forming a semiconductor structure comprising a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor, comprising:
forming a stack structure over a substrate, wherein the stack structure comprises a plurality of electrode material layers and a plurality of insulating material layers alternately stacked over the substrate;
forming a mask layer on the stack structure;
performing a patterning process on the stack structure, so as to form the MIM capacitor comprising alternately stacked electrodes and insulating layers, wherein performing the patterning process comprises:
performing a first etching process to remove a first portion of the stack structure exposed by the mask layer;
performing a first trimming process on the mask layer to remove a portion of the mask layer, and a first trimmed mask layer is formed; and
performing a second etching process to remove a second portion of the stack structure exposed by the first trimmed mask layer;

forming contact vias and conductive lines connected to the electrodes from above the MIM capacitor; and
forming conductive plugs connected to the conductive lines, wherein the conductive plugs are laterally spaced apart from the MIM capacitor, and extend from above the MIM capacitor to further below a bottom side of the MIM capacitor.