Title :
Silicon-nitride as a tunnel dielectric for improved SONOS-type flash memory
Author :
She, Min ; Takeuchi, Hideki ; King, Tsu-Jae
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
fDate :
5/1/2003 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
High-quality silicon-nitride (Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/) formed by rapid thermal nitridation is investigated as the tunnel dielectric in a SONOS-type memory device for the first time. Compared to a conventional thermal SiO/sub 2/ tunnel dielectric, thermal Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/ provides 100/spl times/ better retention after 1e5 P/E cycles and better endurance characteristics with low programming voltages. Hence, the SONNS structure is promising for nonvolatile memory applications.
Keywords :
dielectric thin films; flash memories; nitridation; rapid thermal processing; semiconductor-insulator boundaries; silicon compounds; tunnelling; RTN; SONOS-type memory device; Si-SiO/sub 2/-Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/-SiO/sub 2/-Si; charge trap; endurance characteristics; flash memory; low programming voltages; nonvolatile memory applications; rapid thermal nitridation; retention; thermal Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/; tunnel dielectric; Charge carrier processes; Dielectric devices; Electron traps; Flash memory; Leakage current; Nonvolatile memory; SONOS devices; Silicon; Tunneling; Voltage;
Journal_Title :
Electron Device Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LED.2003.812547
