Impact of atomistic doping and 3D electrostatics on the variability of RTN time constants in flash memories

Referring to a template deca-nanometer Flash cell, we show for the first time that 3D electrostatics and atomistic doping play an essential role in the time constants of random telegraph noise in nanoscale MOS devices, resulting in a several orders-of-magnitude spread in their values and in their negligible correlation with the noise fluctuation amplitude. These results reveal that any 1D method for trap spectroscopy is intrinsically flawed when applied to nanoscale devices, and also question the possibility of correctly extracting the physical trap parameters.