Efficient and reliable Schottky barrier silicon nanowire charge-trapping flash memory

This paper presents experimentally a novel Schottky barrier (SB) silicon nanowire charge-trapping memory with low-voltage operations and excellent reliability. The unique SB source/drain junctions are utilized to produce strong enhancements of hot-electrons or hot-holes generations to perform efficient programming and erasing (P/E). The efficient P/E injections enable the multi-level SB memory cells to operate at sub-10V gate voltages through Fowler-Nordheim mode P/E. Additionally, the roles of electron and hole carriers in N-channel cells can be switched directly to operate the SB nanowire devices in P-channel cells because of ambipolar conduction. Reliability characterization confirms the SB nanowire cells operate well after cycling endurance and data retention tests.