Patent ID: 8679927

Claim:
A method of fabricating a semiconductor structure, comprising: forming a non-volatile charge trapping dielectric stack over a first region of a semiconductor substrate, the non-volatile charge trapping dielectric stack including a blocking layer on a charge trapping layer over a tunneling layer, wherein forming the nonvolatile charge trapping dielectric stack comprises: opening a window in a sacrificial dielectric layer to expose the first region of the semiconductor substrate, and forming in the window, the blocking layer on the charge trapping layer over the tunneling layer; removing the non-volatile charge trapping dielectric stack over a second and third region of the semiconductor substrate; performing a thermal oxidation to form a first gate insulator layer over the second region of the semiconductor substrate and to thermally reoxidize the blocking layer; and performing a nitridation process to nitridize the first gate insulator layer and the blocking layer simultaneously.