Patent ID: 7915664

Claim:
A non-volatile storage system, comprising: a plurality of non-volatile storage elements formed on a substrate and spaced apart from one another along the substrate in a first direction, each non-volatile storage element comprising an associated bottom insulating layer above the substrate, an associated floating gate above the bottom insulating layer, an associated control gate above the floating gate, and at least one associated sidewall insulating layer extending upwards at least partway along one side of the associated floating gate, where the floating gates comprise inverted T structures; and epitaxially grown regions extending upwards from the substrate between respective pairs of non-volatile storage elements of the plurality of non-volatile storage elements, to a height which is above a bottom level of the floating gates, where, for each non-volatile storage element, the at least one associated sidewall insulating layer has a thickness near the associated floating gate which is less than about two-thirds of a thickness of the bottom insulating layer.