Methods of Forming a Magnetic Tunnel Junction Device
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsChern-Yow Hsu, Shih-Chang Liu, Chia-Shiung Tsai
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Abstract
Embodiments of the present disclosure are a method of forming a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) device and methods of forming a magnetic random access memory (MRAM) device. An embodiment is a method of forming a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) device, the method comprising forming an MTJ layer over a bottom electrode, forming a top electrode layer over the MTJ layer, and selectively etching the top electrode layer to form a top electrode over the MTJ layer. The method further comprises patterning an upper portion of the MTJ layer with an ion beam etch (IBE) process.
Claims20
A method of forming a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) device, the method comprising:
- forming an MTJ layer over a bottom electrode;
- forming a top electrode layer over the MTJ layer;
- selectively etching the top electrode layer to form a top electrode over the MTJ layer;
- and
- patterning an upper portion of the MTJ layer with an ion beam etch (IBE) process.
A method of forming a magnetic random access memory (MRAM) device, the method comprising:
- forming a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) layer over a bottom electrode, the MTJ layer including a free layer;
- forming a top electrode layer over the MTJ layer;
- etching the top electrode layer to form a top electrode over the MTJ layer;
- and
- patterning the free layer of the MTJ layer with a multi-step ion beam etching (IBE) process.
A method of forming a magnetic random access memory (MRAM) device, the method comprising:
- forming an anti-ferromagnetic (AFM) layer;
- forming a pinned layer over the AFM layer;
- forming a barrier layer over the pinned layer;
- forming a free layer over the barrier layer;
- and
- performing an ion beam etching (IBE) process to pattern the free layer, wherein the IBE process stops on the barrier layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.