PROCESS FOR REMOVING AN OXIDE DURING THE FABRICATION OF A RESISTOR

摘要

Various methods of fabricating a circuit structure, such as a gate electrode or a resistor are provided. In one aspect, a method of fabricating a circuit structure is provided that includes forming a silicon structure (18) on a substrate (12) and forming an oxide film (44) on the silicon structure (18). A first portion (30) of the oxide film (44) is masked while a second portion (22) is left unmasked. The second portion (22) of the oxide film (44) is removed by isotropic plasma etching to expose a portion (22) of the silicon structure (18), and the first portion (30) of the oxide film (44) is unmasked. Use of isotropic etching for removal of a resistor protect oxide reduces the potential for isolation structure damage due to agressive overetching associated with conventional anisotropic etching techniques.