Applying epitaxial silicon in disposable spacer flow

1. A process for forming active transistors for a semiconductor memory device, said process comprising the steps of:

forming transistor gates having generally vertical sidewalls in a memory array section and in periphery section;

implanting a first type of conductive dopants into exposed silicon defined as active area regions of said transistor gates;

forming temporary oxide spacers on said generally vertical sidewalls of said transistor gates by depositing an oxide spacers on said semicondutor memory device that has a thickness that is more than half the spacing between said transistor gates in said memory array section and by etching said oxide layer to form said temporary oxide spacers;

after said step of forming temporary spacers, growing epitaxial silicon over exposed silicon regions;

after said step of growing an epitaxial silicon, implanting a second type of conductive dopants into said exposed silicon regions to form source/drain regions of said active transistors;

removing said temporary oxide spacers; and

forming permanent nitride spacers on said generally vertical sidewalls of said transistor gates.

2. The process as recited in claim 1 , wherein said step of forming permanent nitride spacers further comprises the steps of:

depositing an nitride layer on the surface of said semiconductor memory device; and

etching said nitride layer to form said permanent nitride spacers without exposing any of said source/drain regions.

3. The process as recited in claim 1 , wherein said step of growing epitaxial silicon comprises growing epitaxial germanium silicon.