According to one exemplary embodiment, a structure comprises a substrate.
The structure further comprises at least one memory cell situated on the
substrate. The at least one memory cell may be, for example, a flash
memory cell, such as a SONOS flash memory cell and may include a gate
situated over an ONO stack. The structure further comprises an interlayer
dielectric layer situated over the at least one memory cell and over the
substrate. According to this exemplary embodiment, the structure further
comprises a UV radiation blocking layer situated directly over the
interlayer dielectric layer, where the UV radiation blocking layer is
selected from the group consisting of silicon-rich oxide and silicon-rich
nitride. The UV radiation blocking layer may have a thickness of between
approximately 1500.0 Angstroms and approximately 2000.0 Angstroms, for
example.
