Post treatment to reduce shunting devices for physical etching process
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsYu-Jen Wang, Dongna Shen, Vignesh Sundar, Sahil Patel
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Abstract
A method for etching a magnetic tunneling junction (MTJ) structure is described. A stack of MTJ layers is provided on a bottom electrode. A top electrode is provided on the MTJ stack. The top electrode is patterned. Thereafter, the MTJ stack not covered by the patterned top electrode is oxidized or nitridized. Then, the MTJ stack is patterned to form a MTJ device wherein any sidewall re-deposition formed on sidewalls of the MTJ device is non-conductive and wherein some of the dielectric layer remains on horizontal surfaces of the bottom electrode.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- providing a stack of material layers, the stack of material layers including:
- a first electrode layer;
- and
- a magnetic tunneling junction (MTJ) stack disposed on the first electrode layer,
- the MTJ stack including a pinned layer, a tunnel barrier layer and a free layer;
- converting portions of the pinned layer, the tunnel barrier layer and the free layer to a non-conductive portion of the pinned layer, a non-conductive portion of the tunnel barrier layer and a non-conductive portion of the free layer, respectively;
- and
- removing the non-conductive portion of the pinned layer, the non-conductive portion of the tunnel barrier layer and the non-conductive portion of the free layer to form a patterned MTJ stack, wherein remaining portions of the non-conductive portion of the pinned layer, the non-conductive portion of the tunnel barrier layer and the non-conductive portion of the free layer remain disposed on a sidewall of the patterned MTJ stack after the removing of the non-conductive portion of the pinned layer, the non-conductive portion of the tunnel barrier layer and the non-conductive portion of the free layer to form the patterned MTJ stack.
A method comprising:
- providing a stack of material layers, the stack of material layers including:
- a bottom electrode layer;
- and
- a magnetic tunneling junction (MTJ) stack disposed on the bottom electrode layer;
- applying a liquid to portions of the MTJ stack to convert the portions to non-conductive portions;
- and
- removing the non-conductive portions to form a patterned MTJ stack, wherein the removing of the non-conductive portions to form the patterned MTJ stack includes some of the non-conductive portions being redeposited on the patterned MTJ stack and the bottom electrode layer.
A method comprising:
- forming a magnetic tunneling junction (MTJ) stack on a first electrode;
- converting portions of the MTJ stack and the first electrode to non-conductive portions;
- and
- removing the non-conductive portions to form a patterned MTJ stack and a patterned first electrode, wherein the removing of the non-conductive portions to form the patterned MTJ stack and the patterned first electrode includes some of the non-conductive portions being redeposited on the patterned MTJ stack.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.