To provide a method of forming a magnetic tunnel junction structure.
After deposition of a bottom electrode 502, an MTJ stack 504 and a top electrode 506, a sacrificial layer 508 is deposited on the top electrode 506. The deposits of top electrode 506 and the bottom electrode 502 are made of tantalum (Ta), titanium (Ti), ruthenium (Ru), other conductive metals, or any combination thereof. The deposit of the sacrificial layer 508 can be made of silicon oxynitride, silicon carbon, silicon nitride, titanium nitride, or any combination thereof. A pattern definition is applied using a lithographic process, and a hard mask etch process is applied to an MTJ structure 500 in accordance with the pattern definition and a hard mask 512. After the pattern definition is applied using the sacrificial layer and the top electrode as the hard mask, portions of the MTJ stack 504 are removed also in accordance with the pattern definition.
KANG SEUNG H
XIAOCHUN ZHU
| JPH0421913A | 1992-01-24 | |||
| JPH06306647A | 1994-11-01 | |||
| JP2004349687A | 2004-12-09 | |||
| JP2005523575A | 2005-08-04 | |||
| JP2005524238A | 2005-08-11 | |||
| JP2005175493A | 2005-06-30 | |||
| JPH0421913A | 1992-01-24 | |||
| JPH06306647A | 1994-11-01 | |||
| JP2004349687A | 2004-12-09 | |||
| JP2005523575A | 2005-08-04 | |||
| JP2003332337A | 2003-11-21 | |||
| JP2005072541A | 2005-03-17 |
Yoshihiro Fukuhara
Makoto Nakamura
Nobuhisa Nogawa
Takashi Mine
Naoki Kono
Katsu Sunagawa
Morisezo Iseki
Takao Ako
Tadashi Inoue
Tatsushi Sato
Takashi Okada
Mihoko Horiuchi