US Patent 7192830 Method for fabricating a memory cell

Silicon nanocrystals are applied as storage layer (6) and removed using spacer elements (11) laterally with respect to the gate electrode (5). By means of an implantation of dopant, source/drain regions (2) are fabricated in a self-aligned manner with respect to the storage layer (6). The portions of the storage layer (6) are interrupted by the gate electrode (5) and the gate dielectric (4), so that a central portion of the channel region (3) is not covered by the storage layer (6). This memory cell is suitable as a multi-bit flash memory cell in a virtual ground architecture.