초록
When the program voltage is applied to a word line, a part of the boosted channel charge in inhibited bit lines is lost due to the coupling between the string select line (SSL) and the adjacent word line. This phenomenon causes the program disturbance in the cells connected to the inhibited bit lines. This program disturbance becomes more serious, as the word line pitch is decreased. To reduce the word line coupling, the rising edge of the word-line voltage waveform was changed from a pulse step into a ramp waveform with a controlled slope. The word-line ramping circuit was composed of a timer, a decoder, a 8 b D/A converter, a comparator, and a high voltage switch pump (HVSP). The ramping voltage was generated by using a stepping waveform. The rising time and the stepping number of the word-line voltage for programming were set to $\mutextrm{m}-$ and 8, respectively,. The ramping circuit was used in a 512Mb NAND flash memory fabricated with a $0.15-\mutextrm{m}$ CMOS technology, reducing the SSL coupling voltage from 1.4V into a value below 0.4V.