Appeal No. 1998-0088
Application 08/622,327
voltages, thereby permitting the writing operation to be performed at
a high speed even with a low voltage supply (Spec. at 19,
ll. 16-20).
Film 12, referred to as a re-oxidized nitrided oxide (RNO)
film, contains nitrogen at a content not less than 2.5x1020/cm3 and
hydrogen at a content less than 3x1020/cm3 (Spec. at 18, ll. 2 and 8-
10). Film 12 overlies the drain avalanche hot carrier injection
region 10 in order to suppress the injection of drain avalanche hot
carriers (Spec. at 18, ll. 17-19 and at 19, ll. 21-25). As a result,
even if the electric field near the drain region 7 increases due to
miniaturization, generation of an interface level due to implantation
of drain avalanche hot carriers can be effectively prevented (Spec.
at 19, l. 25 to p. 20, l. 5).
In addition to the embodiment depicted in Appellants' Figure 1,
the drawings show ten other embodiments (Spec. at 15-16).
C. The claims
Claim 15, the sole independent claim on appeal, reads as
follows:
15. A semiconductor memory device comprising:
a semiconductor substrate; and
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007