Patent ID: 7091088

Claim:
A method of protecting a charge trapping dielectric flash memory cell from UV-induced charging, comprising: fabricating a charge trapping dielectric flash memory cell and surrounding the memory cell with a first interlevel dielectric layer (ILD) that includes a conductive plug to establish electrical connection to a conductive region of a substrate upon which a stack gate of the memory cell is formed; depositing a UV-protective layer over the charge trapping dielectric flash memory cell and the first ILD layer, the UV-protective layer including a UV-opaque etch stop layer; etching the UV-protective layer to form an opening therein with an etchant species selective to stop on a layer below the at least one UV-protective layer; and filling the opening in the UV-protective layer to form an electrode vertically traversing the entire UV-protective layer and physically contacting an upper surface of the conductive plug.