Patent ID: 8211762

Claim:
A method of fabricating a non-volatile memory device, comprising: depositing a non-metal conductive control gate layer over a floating gate; depositing a sacrificial nitride layer over the non-metal conductive control gate layer; selectively etching the sacrificial nitride layer leaving a selectively etched control gate recess; and further comprising: forming more than one flash memory cell in the non-volaitle memory device comprising: etching away portions of the non-metal conductive control gate layer and the sacrificial nitride layer to at least partially define boundary voids extending between separate vertical layered stacks; depositing at least some inter cell material within the boundary voids; etching one or more contact recesses in the inter cell material; and depositing a metal within the one or more contact recesses to form a source contact or a drain contact for the more than one flash memory cells in the non-volatile memory device.