Patent ID: 8603890

Claim:
A method of fabricating non-volatile storage, comprising: forming a first layer stack column and a second layer stack column elongated in a column direction over a substrate, each layer stack column having two vertical sidewalls and including a charge storage strip over a tunnel dielectric strip, the first layer stack column overlying a first active area of the substrate and the second layer stack column overlying a second active area of the substrate; etching the substrate to define an isolation region between the first active area and the second active area; modifying a surface of at least a portion of the two vertical sidewalls of each layer stack column by ion implantation prior to etching the substrate; growing a cap between the first layer stack column and the second layer stack column, the cap extending vertically along at least a portion of the charge storage strip of the first column and the charge storage strip of the second column; and forming a bit line air gap in the isolation region having an upper endpoint defined at least partially by the cap.