Title :
Direct Impact of Chemical Bonding of Oxynitride on Boron Penetration and Electrical Oxide Hardening for Nanoscale Flash Memory
Author :
Taehoon Kim ; Koka, Shinji ; Surthi, S. ; Zhuang, K.
Author_Institution :
Micron Technol., Micron Technol., Inc., Boise, ID, USA
Abstract :
We report the direct correlation between chemical bonding and the physical-electrical properties of oxynitride (SiON). Through comparing oxynitrides grown by furnace anneal and by plasma method in the low-nitrogen-concentration region (<; 16 at %), we found that the boron blocking efficiency and oxide hardening against high-field electrical stress are directly enhanced by the N-Si3 and N-(SiOx)3 configurations, while the Si2-N-O configuration, in spite of the much higher nitrogen concentration, moderately degrades the hardening effect with less improvement for boron blocking. The results indicate that controlling the nitrogen bonding configuration for tunnel oxide may be a key solution to the insufficient reliability of nanoscale Flash memory.
Keywords :
bonds (chemical); flash memories; hardening; oxygen compounds; silicon compounds; N-(SiOx)3; N-Si3; Si2-N-O; SiON; boron blocking efficiency; boron penetration; chemical bonding; direct correlation; electrical oxide hardening; furnace anneal; low-nitrogen-concentration region; nanoscale flash memory; nitrogen bonding configuration; oxynitrides; physical-electrical properties; plasma method; tunnel oxide; Annealing; Bonding; Boron; Chemicals; Flash memory; Nitrogen; Silicon; Angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) (ARXPS); Flash memory; boron penetration; oxide hardening; plasma nitridation (PN); secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS); silicon oxynitride (SiON); top nitridation;
Journal_Title :
Electron Device Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LED.2013.2239254