SRAM BIT CELL WITH SELF-ALIGNED BIDIRECTIONAL LOCAL INTERCONNECTS

Improved SRAMs are formed with significantly reduced local interconnect to gate shorts, by a technique providing bidirectional, self-aligned local interconnects, employing a gate hard mask over portions of the gates not connected to the local interconnects. Embodiments include forming a gate hard mask over gates, forming bidirectional trenches overlying portions of the gate electrodes and active silicon regions, etching the hard mask layer to expose regions of the gate electrodes that are to connect to local interconnects, and filling the trenches with conductive material to form self-aligned local interconnects.