Patent ID: 9257637
Filing Date: 2016-02-09
CPC Classification: H01L

Claim Text:
1. A method of manufacturing a magnetoresistive memory element array comprising: forming a bottom electrode on a substrate; forming an etching stop layer on the bottom electrode; forming a magnetoresistive stack film on the etching stop layer; forming a cap layer on the magnetoresistive layer; forming a hard mask layer on the cap layer; forming a first photo-resist pattern to form first parallel photo-resist lines along a first direction and having narrow photo-resist areas with a first width and having anchor-supporting photo-resist areas with a first enlarged width, narrow photo-resist areas and anchor-supporting photo-resist areas are repeated along the first direction; conducting a first etching process to etch away exposed top hard mask materials and stop at the cap layer; conducting a first photo removal process; forming a second photo-resist pattern to form second parallel narrow-width photo-resist lines along a second direction and having narrow photo-resist areas with a second width and having large anchor-supporting photo-resist areas with a second enlarged width, narrow photo-resist areas and anchor-supporting photo-resist areas are repeated along the second direction; conducting a second etching process to etch away remaining exposed top hard mask materials and stop at the cap layer; conducting a second photo removal process to form a hard mask array; forming a magnetoresistive memory element array by conducting a third etch process to etch away exposed magnetoresistive stack layers on exposed areas to top surface or in the middle of the etching stop layer, or top surface or middle of the magnetoresistive stack film.