Low resistance monosilicide electrode for phase change memory and methods of making the same

Abstract

This disclosure relates to a low-resistance monosilicide electrode and method of making the monosilicide electrode. A cell film stack is first formed on a substrate of a wafer. The top layer of this cell film stack is silicon. The cell film stack is then etched to form at least one pillar. Dielectric is deposited to fill the gaps between the pillars. The wafer is then planarized to expose the top silicon layer. The exposed top silicon layer is converted into a nickel monosilicide layer by way of a thermal solid-state reaction between nickel and the silicon layer. This nickel monosilicide layer forms the monosilicide electrode.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.