Impact of Heavy-Ion Strikes on Nanocrystal Non Volatile Memory Cell Arrays

Author

Cester, Andrea ; Gasperin, Alberto ; Wrachien, Nicola ; Paccagnella, Alessandro ; Ancarani, Valentina ; Gerardi, Cosimo

Author_Institution

Dipt. di Ingegneria dell´´Informazione, Padova Univ.

Volume

53

Issue

6

fYear

2006

Firstpage

3195

Lastpage

3202

Abstract

In this work we focused our attention on heavy ion irradiation effects on nanocrystal memory cell arrays. All cells are fabricated by depositing Si nanocrystal on top of a SiO₂ layer. Immediately after irradiation we observed neither charge loss following the ion hit, nor appreciable change of the electrical characteristics of the nanocrystal MOSFETs, such as transconductance and drain current decrease. In addition, despite the gate oxide leakage current may show a large increase after irradiation with high energy ions, the data retention time of the cells is not compromised, due to the discrete nature of the nanocrystal storage node

Keywords

CMOS memory circuits; ion beam effects; nanostructured materials; CMOS memory integrated circuits; Si; Si nanocrystal; SiO₂; SiO₂ layer; data retention time; gate oxide leakage current; heavy ion irradiation effects; high energy ions; nanocrystal MOSFET; nanocrystal nonvolatile memory cell arrays; nanocrystal storage node; CMOS process; CMOS technology; Electric variables; Fabrication; Leakage current; MOSFETs; Nanocrystals; Nonvolatile memory; Silicon; Space technology; CMOS memory integrated circuits; heavy ion irradiation; non-volatile memories; radiation effects;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2006.885004

Filename

4033311