Title :
Impact of crystal size and tunnel dielectric on semiconductor nanocrystal memory performance
Author :
She, Min ; King, Tsu-Jae
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
Abstract :
The write/erase characteristics of Germanium nanocrystal memory device are modeled using single-charge tunneling theory with quantum confinement and Coulomb blockade effects. A trap model is proposed to describe the retention characteristic of the nanocrystal memory. The impact of nanocrystal size, tunnel-oxide thickness, and high-k tunnel material is studied, and the suitability of the nanocrystal memory devices for nonvolatile memory and DRAM applications is discussed. Issues related to the scaling limit of the nanocrystal memory device are investigated.
Keywords :
Coulomb blockade; DRAM chips; elemental semiconductors; germanium; nanoelectronics; semiconductor storage; tunnelling; Coulomb blockade; DRAM; Ge; crystal size; high-k dielectric; nonvolatile memory; quantum confinement; retention characteristics; scaling limit; semiconductor nanocrystal memory; single-charge tunneling; trap model; tunnel dielectric; tunnel oxide thickness; write/erase characteristics; EPROM; Energy consumption; High K dielectric materials; High-K gate dielectrics; Nanocrystals; Nonvolatile memory; Potential well; Random access memory; Tunneling; Voltage;
Journal_Title :
Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TED.2003.816525
