| 1. A method of manufacturing a sputtering target for use in forming a phase change memory film, comprising the steps of melting
and casting a raw material in a vacuum or under a hermetically sealed inert gas atmosphere to form an ingot pulverizing the
ingot to form a powder, and hot pressing the powder to form said sputtering target such that the sputtering target is composed
from elements of not less than a three component system and one or more principal components selected from a group consisting
of stibium, tellurium and selenium, said target has a compositional deviation in relation to an intended composition of ±1.0
at % or less, an average crystal grain size of 50 μm or less and a relative density of 90% or more; said target having a purity,
excluding gas components, of 99.995 wt. % or more, and a total amount of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur, which are gas
components, of 700 ppm or less and said target has an average value of composition Ai (wt %) of respective constituent elements
of said target, excluding the one or more principal components, in each of two or more samples (i =2, 3, 4 . . . ) collected
from an arbitrary location within said target of A(wt %), |A−Ai|≤0.15.
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