Patent ID: 6875668

Claim:
A method for fabricating a notched gate structure for a semiconductor device, the method comprising: forming spacers of hard mask material on a gate conductor; and utilizing the spacers during etching to form notches in the gate conductor and provide a notched gate structure; wherein forming spacers further comprises providing a first layer of hard mask material over a layer of gate conductor material and forming a desired pattern of gate structure area in the layer of gate conductor material and first layer of hard mask material; wherein forming a desired pattern further comprises utilizing a photoresistive mask selectively over the first layer of hard mask material, performing a timed etch to remove the first layer of hard mask material and a portion of the gate conductive layer in areas not masked by the photoresistive mask, and stripping off the photoresistive mask to leave a pattern of gate structure areas having a top spacer of the first layer of hard mask material and a remaining layer of gate conductive material between the gate structure areas.