Electrically rewritable non-volatile memory element and method of manufacturing the same

Abstract

A non-volatile memory element includes a recording layer that includes a phase change material, a lower electrode provided in contact with the recording layer, an upper electrode provided in contact with a portion of the upper surface of the recording layer, a protective insulation film provided in contact with the other portion of the upper surface of the recording layer, and an interlayer insulation film provided on the protective insulation film. High thermal efficiency can thereby be obtained because the size of the area of contact between the recording layer and the upper electrode is reduced. Providing the protective insulation film between the interlayer insulation film and the upper surface of the recording layer makes it possible to reduce damage sustained by the recording layer during patterning of the recording layer or during formation of the through-hole for exposing a portion of the recording layer.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to electrically rewritable non-volatile memory elements and methods of manufacturing said elements. More specifically, the present invention relates to an electrically rewritable nonvolatile memory element having a recording layer comprising a phase change material and a method of manufacturing the same. Background technique [0002] Personal computers and servers and the like use hierarchical storage devices. There are lower grades of memory that are inexpensive and provide high storage capacity, while higher grades of memory provide high speed operation. The bottom tier generally consists of magnetic storage such as hard drives and tapes. In addition to being non-volatile, magnetic storage is an inexpensive way to store much larger amounts of information than solid-state devices such as semiconductor memory. However, in contrast to the sequential access operation of magnetic memory devices, semiconductor memory is muc...

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Problems solved by technology

[0016] The non-volatile memory elements described in the above three documents as well as in USP 5,536,947 thus have the disadvantage of low thermal efficiency due to the large amount of heat released to the metal layer located above the recording layer

[0018] However, in the case of a structure in which only part of the upper surface of the recording layer is in contact with the upper electrode, such as in the nonvolatile memory elements described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 2004-289029 and 2004-349709, it is impossible to make the upper electrode The electrode acts as a protective film

There is therefore a risk of severe damage to the recording layer occurring during patterning or via formation of the recording layer, as described above

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