Patent ID: 7156964

Claim:
A sputtering target for use in forming a phase change memory film, comprising: a sputtering target composed from elements of not less than a three component system and having as a principal component or components at least one component selected from a group consisting of stibium, tellurium and selenium; and said target having a compositional deviation of ±1.0 at % or less, an average crystal grain size of 50 μm or less, and a relative density of 90% or more; said target having a purity, excluding gas components, of 99.995 wt % or more, and a total amount of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur, which are gas components, of 700 ppm or less; said target having an average value of composition Ai (wt %) of respective constituent elements of said target, excluding the principal component or components, in each of two or more samples (i=2, 3, 4 . . . ) collected from an arbitrary location within said target of A(wt %), |A−Ai|≦0.15; and said target having a body made as a result of subjecting an alloy of said elements of not less than a three component system to melting and casting to form an ingot, pulverizing the ingot to form a powder, and hot pressing the powder to produce said body, whereby sputtering can be performed with the body to form the phase change memory film by deposition.