Fin field effect transistors having a nitride containing spacer to reduce lateral growth of epitaxially deposited semiconductor materials

1. A method of forming a semiconductor device comprising:

forming a gate structure on a plurality of fin structures;

forming a nitride containing layer on each of the fin structures in the plurality of fin structures, wherein a first thickness of the nitride containing layer on outermost sidewalls of the plurality of fin structures is greater than a second thickness for the remainder of the nitride containing layer;

etching the nitride containing layer to remove portions of the nitride containing layer having the second thickness, wherein a remaining portion of the first thickness provides a nitride containing spacer that is present on outermost sidewalls of the plurality of fin structures; and

forming source regions and drain regions on the plurality of fin structures.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

forming a sacrificial material layer on the plurality of fin structures before said forming the sacrificial material layer;

said forming the nitride containing layer on the sacrificial material layer that is present on said each of the fin structures; and

removing the sacrificial material layer after said etching of the nitride containing layer and before forming the source regions and the drain regions.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein forming of the source regions and the drain regions on the plurality of fin structures comprises epitaxially depositing the source regions and the drain regions.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the source regions and the drain regions extend between adjacent fin structures of the plurality of fin structures, and the metal nitride spacer obstructs the epitaxially depositing of the source region and the drain region from depositing epitaxial semiconductor material on the edges of the gate structure that extend beyond the plurality of fin structures.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein the forming of the sacrificial material layer on the plurality of fin structures comprises a conformal deposition of a dielectric material.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the sacrificial material layer comprises an oxide, nitride or oxynitride.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the forming of the metal nitride layer on the sacrificial material layer for each of the fin structures comprises a physical vapor deposition process.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the physical vapor deposition process is selected from the group consisting of plating, sputtering.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the physical vapor deposition process is a sputtering process that is selected from the group consisting of DC diode type systems, radio frequency (RF) sputtering, magnetron sputtering, ionized metal plasma (IMP) sputtering, and combinations thereof.

10. The method of claim 2 , wherein the nitride containing layer is silicon nitride or a metal nitride selected from the group consisting of titanium nitride, tantalum nitride, tungsten nitride, tantalum carbide, hafnium nitride, aluminum nitride and a combination thereof.

11. The method of claim 2 , wherein the first thickness ranges from 6 nm to 50 nm, and the second thickness ranges from 2 nm to 13 nm.

12. The method of claim 2 , wherein the etching of the nitride containing layer to remove the portions of the nitride containing layer having the second thickness comprises an isotropic etch.

13. The method of claim 2 , wherein the etching of the nitride containing layer to remove the portions of the nitride containing layer comprises an etch chemistry that removes a material of the nitride containing layer selectively to at least one of the gate structure and the sacrificial material layer.

14. The method of claim 2 , wherein said removing the sacrificial material layer comprises an etch process that is selective to the plurality of fin structures, the gate structure and the nitride containing spacer.