SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE HAVING NANO-PILLARS AND METHOD THEREFOR

摘要

A semiconductor device (10) includes a plurality of pillars (22) formed from a conductive material (16). The pillars are formed by using a plurality of nanocrystals (20) as a hardmask for patterning the conductive material (16). A thickness of the conductive material determines the height of the pillars. Likewise, a width of the pillar is determined by the diameter of a nanocrystal (20). In one embodiment, the pillars (22) are formed from polysilicon and function as the charge storage region of a non-volatile memory cell (25) having good charge retention and low voltage operation. In another embodiment, the pillars are formed from a metal and function as a plate electrode for a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor (50) having an increased capacitance without increasing the surface area of an integrated circuit.