Abstract: A process for fabricating an improved nonvolatile memory device includes the formation of a control gate electrode (70) which overlies a floating gate electrode (42) and is separated therefrom by an inter-level-dielectric layer (62). The control gate electrode (70) and the underlying floating gate electrode (42) form a stacked gate structure (72) located in the active region (44) of a semiconductor substrate (40). An electrically insulating sidewall spacer (54) is formed at the edges of the floating gate electrode (42) and electrically isolates the control gate (70) from the semiconductor substrate (40). During the fabrication process, implanted memory regions (56, 58) are formed in the active region (44) prior to the formation of control gate electrode (70). A word-line (68) and the control gate (70) are formed by anisotropic etching of a semiconductor layer (66), which is deposited to overlie inter-level-dielectric layer (62).

Abstract: A flash EEPROM array (22) is erased and a threshold voltage distribution of the erased flash EEPROM cells (36, 39-46) is converged to within a predetermined voltage range by using a two-step erasing procedure. In the first step, flash EEPROM array (22) is electrically bulk erased using a conventional bulk erase procedure. Electrons are tunneled from the floating gate (38) to the source, causing cells (36, 39-46) to have a relatively low threshold voltage. In the second step, the threshold voltage distribution of the array (22) is converged to within the predetermined voltage range by grounding the source and drain of each cell (36, 39-46), while concurrently applying a high positive voltage to the control gate (27) of each cell (36, 39-46). Some electrons are tunneled back to the floating gate (38), thus converging the threshold voltage distribution to within a predetermined range.