Sandisk Technologies Inc.

Sandisk Technology LLC

Yasuaki Yonemochi

Hiroyuki Ogawa

Kazutaka Yoshizawa

Dai Iwata

Hiroyuki Kinoshita

Murshed Chowdhury

Jin Liu

Tadashi Nakamura

Matthias Baenninger

Marika Gunji-Yoneoka

Kazuya Tokunaga

Jiyin Xu

Kosaku Yamashita

An alternating stack of insulating layers and spacer material layers is formed over a substrate. An insulating cap layer is formed thereupon. A memory opening is formed, which has a greater lateral dimension at a level of an upper insulating cap sublayer than at a level of a lower insulating cap sublayer. A memory film and a semiconductor channel material layer is formed in the memory opening. Ions of at least one dopant species is implanted into a top portion of the semiconductor channel material layer. An isotropic etch process etches an unimplanted portion of the semiconductor channel material layer at a higher etch rate than the implanted top portion of the semiconductor channel material layer to form a vertical semiconductor channel.

Three-dimensional memory device and method of making the same using differential thinning of vertical channels

An annular dielectric spacer can be formed at a level of a joint-level dielectric material layer between vertically neighboring pairs of alternating stacks of insulating layers and spacer material layers. After formation of a memory opening through multiple alternating stacks and formation of a memory film therein, an anisotropic etch can be performed to remove a horizontal bottom portion of the memory film. The annular dielectric spacer can protect underlying portions of the memory film during the anisotropic etch. In addition, a silicon nitride barrier may be employed to suppress hydrogen diffusion at an edge region of peripheral devices.

Multi-tier three-dimensional memory devices containing annular dielectric spacers within memory openings and methods of making the same

A method of forming narrow and wide lines includes forming mandrels separated by wider gaps and narrower gaps, forming sidewall spacers on sides of the gaps, and then removing the mandrels. Subsequent anisotropic etching extends through an underlying mask layer at locations between sidewall spacers that were formed in wider gaps, to thereby separate narrow line portions of the mask layer, without extending through the mask layer at locations between sidewall spacers that were formed in narrower gaps, thereby leaving wide line portions of the mask layer under the second sidewall spacers.

Sidewall assisted process for wide and narrow line formation

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Yokkaichi, Japan

Yasuaki Yonemochi