Sandisk Technologies Inc.

Andrey Serov

Johann Alsmeier

Yanli Zhang

James K Kai

Henry Chien

Jixin Yu

Daxin Mao

Zhenyu Lu

Chun Ge

Discrete silicon nitride portions can be formed at each level of electrically conductive layers in an alternating stack of insulating layers and the electrically conductive layers. The discrete silicon nitride portions can be employed as charge trapping material portions, each of which is laterally contacted by a tunneling dielectric portion on the front side, and by a blocking dielectric portion on the back side. The tunneling dielectric portions may be formed as discrete material portions or portions within a tunneling dielectric layer. The blocking dielectric portions may be formed as discrete material portions or portions within a blocking dielectric layer. The discrete silicon nitride portions can be formed by depositing a charge trapping material layer and selectively removing portions of the charge trapping material layer at levels of the insulating layers. Various schemes may be employed to singulate the charge trapping material layer.

Three dimensional memory device containing discrete silicon nitride charge storage regions

A three dimensional NAND device includes a common vertical channel and electrically isolated control gate electrodes on different lateral sides of the channel in each device level to form different lateral portions of a memory cell in each device level. Dielectric separator structures are located between and electrically isolate the control gate electrodes. The lateral portions of the memory cell in each device level may be electrically isolated by at least one of doping ungated portions of the channel adjacent to the separator structures or storing electrons in the separator structure.

3D semicircular vertical NAND string with self aligned floating gate or charge trap cell memory cells and methods of fabricating and operating the same

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Milpitas, CA, United States of America

Andrey Serov