US Patent 7820538 Method of fabricating a MOS device with non-SiO

A polycrystalline silicon layer is deposited on a gate dielectric and then a portion thereof is re-oxidized so as to form a thin layer of oxide between the poly-Si layer and the underlying gate dielectric. Subsequently, the poly-Si layer is converted to a fully-silicided form so as to produce a FUSI gate. The gate dielectric can be a high-k material, for example a Hf-containing material, or SION, or another non-SiO2 dielectric. The barrier oxide layer is preferably less than 1 nm thick.