US Patent Issued to Sandisk Technologies on Nov. 3 for "Stairless three-dimensional memory device and method of making the same by forming replacement word lines" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,787,281, issued on Nov. 3, was assigned to Sandisk Technologies Inc. (Milpitas, Calif.).

"Stairless three-dimensional memory device and method of making the same by forming replacement word lines" was invented by Akihiro Tobioka (Nagoya, Japan) and Takayuki Maekura (Yokkaichi, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An alternating stack of insulating layers and sacrificial material layers is formed over a substrate, memory openings are formed through the alternating stack, and memory opening fill structures including a respective vertical stack of memory elements are formed in the memory openings. The sacrificial material layers are replaced...