The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 25, 2003
Filed:
Oct. 16, 2000
Bharath Rangarajan, Santa Clara, CA (US);
David Foote, San Jose, CA (US);
Fei Wang, San Jose, CA (US);
Steven K. Park, Cupertino, CA (US);
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
A process for fabricating a non-volatile memory device in which extraneous electrical charge is removed from charge-storage layers during fabrication includes exposing a charge-storage layer to infrared radiation prior to forming additional layers of the non-volatile memory cell. For example, in a memory cell incorporating a dielectric floating-gate electrode, such as silicon nitride, the infrared radiation exposure step is carried out after forming the floating-gate electrodes and prior to formation of the control-gate electrode. By exposing the charge-storage layer to infrared radiation prior to forming additional layers, extraneous electrical charge arising from previous processing steps can be efficiently removed from the floating-gate electrodes.