Patent 7078777 was granted and assigned to Elpida Memory on July, 2006 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A gate electrode structure in a semiconductor device has a doped polysilicon (DOPOS) film, a tungsten silicide film, a tungsten silicide nitride film, a tungsten nitride film and a tungsten film consecutively as viewed from the substrate. The tungsten silicide nitride film is formed between the tungsten silicide film and the tungsten nitride film by a plurality of heat treatments. The tungsten silicide nitride film has a small thickness of 2 to 5 nm and has a lower interface resistance for achieving a low-resistance gate electrode, suited for a higher-speed operation of the semiconductor device.