A diffusion break is a structural interruption used to separate device regions. Dopant diffusion is the movement and redistribution of impurity atoms. The shared word does not make the break a thermal treatment, or prove that dopants stop moving during later heating.
Identify the object before interpreting the name
In the cited patent, a fin recess is filled with dielectric to form a diffusion-break structure. This describes geometry and material boundaries. It is an example of a physical separation, rather than a universal implementation for every FinFET Flow. The patent has a 2014 priority history and a 2016 publication; those dates describe different events.
Dopant diffusion instead concerns a concentration profile in a material. Heating can redistribute atoms and change junction placement. Its interpretation requires the species, host material, defects and thermal history. A drawing of two separated device regions provides none of those kinetic measurements.
Process map
This step lives inside the 7nm FinFET course
Identify the mask opening prepared for later isolation; explain why this station does not yet demonstrate a completed break or a frozen dopant profile.
Real step names, layer-by-layer cross-sections, and rationale live inside the 7nm FinFET course, unlocked by account access.
A mask opening is an intermediate state
The linked hardmask station transfers an opening that will guide subsequent processing. A mask can be correct while the underlying separation remains unfinished. Distinguish the intended final function, the current material being patterned and the downstream operation that must establish that function.
This also separates three completion questions: was the mask patterned, was the intended region physically interrupted, and does the finished structure provide the required electrical separation? An affirmative answer to the first does not settle the other two.
Conditions and counterexamples
A structure may interrupt a silicon conduction path without establishing zero leakage through every surrounding material. Conversely, a thermal treatment may redistribute dopants without changing the drawn isolation outline. Geometric isolation and atomic kinetics therefore require different evidence.
Do not read the name as a claim that a particular patent, depth or performance has been implemented. The reference supports the structural meaning; the Flow locates one preparation step.
A learning task with two endpoints
At the linked station, identify the hardmask and the later isolation purpose. Then describe dopant diffusion using an atom and its spatial distribution rather than a mask opening. A successful answer states what the current station prepares and what remains unproved: final isolation and the post-thermal dopant profile.
This distinction is useful when reviewing process diagrams: a named functional module can contain several preparation steps, while the final device outcome requires the complete sequence.
References
Method for forming single diffusion breaks between finfet devices and the resulting devices
YU HONG, SHEN HONGLIANG, HU ZHENYU, LIU JIN PING
US-2016190130-A1 · GLOBALFOUNDRIES INC · Filed 2015
Silicon VLSI Technology - Full
James D. Plummer, Michael D. Deal, Peter B. Griffin
Silicon VLSI Technology · ISBN 978-0130850379