First principle study of the stability of H atoms in SiN layers on MONOS-type memories during program/erase operations

Author

Yamaguchi, Keita ; Otake, Akira ; Kamiya, Katsumasa ; Shiraishi, Kenji ; Shigeta, Yasuteru

Author_Institution

Grad. Sch. of Pure & Appl. Sci., Univ. of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

fYear

2011

fDate

8-10 Sept. 2011

Firstpage

215

Lastpage

218

Abstract

Recently, hydrogen has been recognized as an important heteroatom in Metal-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Semiconductor (MONOS) -type memories for its quality improvement. However, if stability of H atoms in SiN layers changes by applying high voltage, memory characteristics of MONOS-type memories change during program/erase (P/E) operations, resulting in memory degradation. Therefore, in this paper, we have investigated the stability of H atoms in SiN charge trapping layers of MONOS-type memories during P/E operations by using first principles calculations. Our calculations show that H atoms in Si or N vacancies in SiN layers become unstable and migrate when high voltage is applied, leading to memory degradation with changes of memory characteristics. This result clearly indicates that suppression of H atoms in SiN layers is necessary for realization of high quality MONOS-type memories.

Keywords

MOS memory circuits; ab initio calculations; hydrogen; nitrogen; silicon; silicon compounds; vacancies (crystal); H atom stability; MONOS-type memory; N vacancies; SiN; charge trapping layers; erase operation; first principle method; memory degradation; metal-oxide-nitride-oxide-semiconductor-type memory; program operation; Atomic layer deposition; Crystals; Degradation; Photonic band gap; Silicon; Silicon compounds; Stability analysis; MONOS; SiN; first principles calculations; non-volatile memory;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Simulation of Semiconductor Processes and Devices (SISPAD), 2011 International Conference on

Conference_Location

Osaka

ISSN

1946-1569

Print_ISBN

978-1-61284-419-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SISPAD.2011.6034917

Filename

6034917