High Density and Low Voltage Programmable Scaled SONOS Nonvolatile Memory for the Byte and Flash-Erased Type EEPROMs

Scaled SONOS transistors have been fabricated by 0.35$\mu\textrm{m}$ CMOS standard logic process. The thickness of stacked ONO(blocking oxide, memory nitride, tunnel oxide) gate insulators measured by TEM are 2.5 nm, 4.0 nm and 2.4 nm, respectively. The SONOS memories have shown low programming voltages of ${\pm}$8.5 V and long-term retention of 10-year Even after 2 ${\times}$ 10$\^$5/ program/erase cycles, the leakage current of unselected transistor in the erased state was low enough that there was no error in read operation and we could distinguish the programmed state from the erased states precisely The tight distribution of the threshold voltages in the programmed and the erased states could remove complex verifying process caused by over-erase in floating gate flash memory, which is one of the main advantages of the charge-trap type devices. A single power supply operation of 3 V and a high endurance of 1${\times}$10$\^$6/ cycles can be realized by the programming method for a flash-erased type EEPROM.

플래시 및 바이트 소거형 EEPROM을 위한 고집적 저전압 Scaled SONOS 비휘발성 기억소자