SHAPINHG A PHASE CHANGE LAYER IN A PHASE CHANGE MEMORY CELL

A method for forming a phase change layer in a phase change memory cell is provided to acquire high quality dots without the generation of corrosion. A phase change layer made of a phase changeable material is formed on a semiconductor body. A hard mask structure is formed on the phase change layer. A resist mask(48) is formed on the hard mask structure. A hard mask(50) is formed by etching selectively the hard mask structure using the resist mask as an etch mask. The resist mask is removed from the resultant structure. At this time, a photoresist stripping process is performed on the resultant structure. A phase change layer is selectively etched by using the hard mask as an etch mask.