Method for manufacturing high density non-volatile magnetic memory

A method for fabricating thin film magnetic memory cells on a wafer comprising:

• depositing a stack of layers for a magnetic memory device on a substrate;
• depositing a lower dielectric layer over the stack of layers for a magnetic memory device;
• depositing a metal layer over the lower dielectric layer;
• depositing an upper dielectric material layer over the metal layer;
• patterning a first line mask of parallel lines of material;
• forming parallel lines in the upper dielectric material by etching through the upper dielectric material layer using the first line mask;
• patterning a second line mask over the parallel lines of upper dielectric material, the second line mask including parallel lines arranged orthogonally to the parallel lines of upper dielectric material and overlapping the parallel lines of upper dielectric material;
• forming pads of upper dielectric material by etching through the parallel lines of upper dielectric layer using the second line mask;
• and
• forming pillars of layers for the magnetic memory device on the substrate by executing a series of etching processes that successively transfer a shape of the pads of upper dielectric material into layers below the pads of upper dielectric material.