Patent ID: 7605045

Claim:
A method for fabricating a field effect transistor, the method comprising the steps of: forming a gate insulator overlying a silicon substrate; forming a polycrystalline silicon gate electrode in physical contact with the gate insulator, wherein the gate electrode has two parallel sidewalls; fabricating two sidewall spacers overlying the silicon substrate after the step of forming the polycrystalline silicon gate electrode, wherein each of the two sidewall spacers has a sidewall that is adjacent to one of the two parallel sidewalls of the gate electrode; removing a first portion of the gate electrode between the two sidewall spacers such that a second portion of the gate electrode remains between the two sidewall spacers; and forming metal silicide using the second portion of the gate electrode to form the metal silicide, the step of forming metal silicide performed after the step of removing a first portion of the gate electrode.