• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.312-320
• /
• 2019

In this paper, we design a 512Kb eFlash IP using 110nm eFlash cells. We proposed eFlash core circuit such as row driver circuit (CG/SL driver circuit), write BL driver circuit (write BL switch circuit and PBL switch select circuit), read BL switch circuit, and read BL S/A circuit which satisfy eFlash cell program, erase and read operation. In addition, instead of using a cross-coupled NMOS transistor as a conventional unit charge pump circuit, we propose a circuit boosting the gate of the 12V NMOS precharging transistor whose body is GND, so that the precharging node of the VPP unit charge pump is normally precharged to the voltage of VIN and thus the pumping current is increased in the VPP (boosted voltage) voltage generator circuit supplying the VPP voltage of 9.5V in the program mode and that of 11.5V in the erase mode. A 12V native NMOS pumping capacitor with a bigger pumping current and a smaller layout area than a PMOS pumping capacitor was used as the pumping capacitor. On the other hand, the layout area of the 512Kb eFlash memory IP designed based on the 110nm eFlash process is $933.22{\mu}m{\times}925{\mu}m(=0.8632mm^2)$.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.25-28
• /
• 2016

We investigate the effect of interface states on the endurance of a charge trap flash (CTF) NOR array using charge pumping methods. The endurance test was completed from one cell selected randomly from 128 bit cells, where the memory window value after 10² program/erase (P/E) cycles decreased slightly from 2.2 V to 1.7 V. However, the memory window closure abruptly accelerated after 10³ P/E cycles or more (i.e. 0.97 V or 0.7 V) due to a degraded programming speed. On the other hand, the interface trap density (Nit) gradually increased from 3.13×10¹¹ cm⁻² for the initial state to 4×10¹² cm⁻² for 10² P/E cycles. Over 10³ P/E cycles, the Nit increased dramatically from 5.51×10¹² cm⁻² for 10³ P/E cycles to 5.79×10¹² cm⁻² for 10⁴ P/E cycles due to tunnel oxide damages. These results show good correlation between the interface traps and endurance degradation of CTF devices in actual flash cell arrays.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.291-302
• /
• 2013

NAND flash memory (NFM) based storage devices, e.g. Solid State Drive (SSD), are rapidly replacing conventional storage devices, e.g. Hard Disk Drive (HDD). As NAND flash memory technology advances, its specification has evolved to support denser cells and larger pages and blocks. However, efforts to fully understand their impacts on design objectives such as performance, power, and cost for various applications are often neglected. Our research shows this recent trend can adversely affect the design objectives depending on the characteristics of applications. Past works mostly focused on improving the specific design objectives of NFM based systems via various architectural solutions when the specification of NFM is given. Several other works attempted to model and characterize NFM but did not access the system-level impacts of individual parameters. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first work that considers the specification of NFM as the design parameters of NAND flash storage devices (NFSDs) and analyzes the characteristics of various synthesized and real traces and their interaction with design parameters. Our research shows that optimizing design parameters depends heavily on the characteristics of applications. The main contribution of this research is to understand the effects of low-level specifications of NFM, e.g. cell type, page size, and block size, on system-level metrics such as performance, cost, and power consumption in various applications with different characteristics, e.g. request length, update ratios, read-and-modify ratios. Experimental results show that the optimized page and block size can achieve up to 15 times better performance than the conventional NFM configuration in various applications. The results can be used to optimize the system-level objectives of a system with specific applications, e.g. embedded systems with NFM chips, or predict the future direction of NFM.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
• /
• v.35 no.12C
• /
• pp.965-970
• /
• 2010

In the NAND flash memory storing two bits per cell, data is discriminated among four levels of electrical charges. We refer to these four levels as E, P1, P2, and P3 from the low voltage. In the statistics, many errors occur when E and P3 are stored at the next cells. Therefore, we propose a coding scheme for avoiding E-P3 or P3-E data patterns. We investigate two modulation codes for 9/10 code (9 bit input and 5 symbol codeword) and 11/12 code (11 bit input and 6 symbol codeword).

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.82-86
• /
• 2019

The reliability of 3D NAND flash memory cell is affected by the charge migration which can be divided into the vertical migration and the lateral migration. To clarify the difference of two migrations, the activation energy of the charge loss is extracted and compared in a conventional square device pattern and a new test pattern where the perimeter of the gate is exaggerated but the area is same. The charge loss is larger in the suggested test pattern and the activation energy is extracted to be 0.058 eV while the activation energy is 0.28 eV in the square pattern.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
• /
• 2000.06b
• /
• pp.40-43
• /
• 2000

The electrons and holes trapped in the tunneling oxide and interface-states generated in the Si/SiO$_2$ interface during program/erase (P/E) operations are known to cause reliability problems which can deteriorate the cell performance and cause the V$_{th}$ window close. This deterioration is caused by the accumulation of electrons and holes trapped in the oxide near the drain and source side after each P/E cycle. we propose three new erase schemes to improve the cell's endurance characteristics: (1)adding a Reverse soft program cycle after the source erase operation, (2)adding a detrapping cycle after the source erase operation, (3)adding a convergence cycle after the source erase operation. (3) is the most effective performance among the three erase schemes have been implemented and shown to significantly reduce the V$_{th}$ window close problem. And we are able to design the reliable periperal circuit of flash memory by using the (3).(3).

• Journal of IKEEE
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.399-404
• /
• 2023

In this paper, we analyzed the current path in the O/N/O (Oxide/Nitride/Oxide) structure of 3D NAND Flash memory and in the O/N/F (Oxide/Nitride/Ferroelectric) structure where the blocking oxide is replaced by a ferroelectric. In the O/N/O structure, when V_read is applied, a current path is formed on the backside of the channel due to the E-fields of neighboring cells. In contrast, the O/N/F structure exhibits a current path formed on the front side due to the polarization of the ferroelectric material, causing electrons to move toward the channel front. Additionally, we performed an examination of device characteristics considering channel thickness and channel length. The analysis results showed that the front electron current density in the O/N/F structure increased by 2.8 times compared to the O/N/O structure, and the front electron current density ratio of the O/N/F structure was 17.7% higher. Therefore, the front current path is formed more effectively in the O/N/F structure than in the O/N/O structure.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics D
• /
• v.36D no.10
• /
• pp.17-22
• /
• 1999

In this paper, the results of the studies about a new proposal where the ONON(oxide-nitride-oxide-nitride) layer instead of the conventional ONO(oxide-nitride-oxide) layer is used as the IPD(inter-poly-dielectrics) layer to improve the data retention problem in the Flash EEPROM cell, have been discussed. For these studies, the stacked-gate Flash EEPROM cell with an about 10nm thick gate oxide and on ONO or ONON IPD layer have been fabricated. The measurement results have shown that the data retention characteristics of the devices with the ONO IPD layer are significantly degraded with an activation energy of 0.78 eV. which is much lower than the minimum value (1.0 eV) required for the Flash EEPROM cell. This is believed to be due to the partial or whole etching of the top oxide of the IPD layer during the cleaning process performed just prior to the dry oxidation process to grow the gate oxide of the peripheral MOSFET devices. Whereas the data retention characteristics of the devices with the ONON IPD layer have been found to be much (more than 50%) improved with an activation energy of 1.10 eV. This must be because the thin nitride layer on the top oxide layer in the ONON IPD layer protected the top oxide layer from being etched during the cleaning process.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics D
• /
• v.36D no.10
• /
• pp.9-16
• /
• 1999

When the conventional IPD (inter-poly-dielctrics) layer with ONO(oxide-nitride-oxide) structure was used in the Flash EEPROM cell, its data retention characteristics were significanfly degraded because the top oxide of the ONO layer was etched off due to the cleaning process used in the gate oxidation process for the peripheral MOSFETs. When the IPD layer with the ONON(oxide-nitride-oxide-nitride) was used there, however, its data retention characteristics were much improved because the top nitride of the ONON layer protected the top oxide from being etched in the cleaning process. For the modelling of the data retention characteristics of the Flash EEPROM cell with the ONON IPD layer, the decrease of the threshold voltage cue to the charge loss during the bake was here given by the empirical relation ${\Delta}V_t\; = \;{\beta}t^me^{-ea/kT}$ and the values of the ${\beta}$=184.7, m=0.224, Ea=0.31 eV were obtained with the experimental measurements. The activation energy of 0.31eV implies that the decrease of the threshold voltage by the back was dur to the movement of the trapped electrons inside the inter-oxide nitride layer. On the other hand, the results of the computer simulation using the model were found to be well consistent with the results of the electrical measurements when the thermal budget of the bake was not high. However, the latter was larger then the former in the case of the high thermal budger, This seems to be due to the leakage current generated by the extraction of the electrons with the bake which were injected into the inter-oxide niride later and were trapped there during the programming, and played the role to prevent the leakage current. To prevent the generation of the leakage current, it is required that the inter-oxide nitride layer and the top oxide layer be made as thin and as thick as possible, respectively.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.49 no.1
• /
• pp.19-28
• /
• 2016

The objective of this study is the generation of the gridded flash flood index using the gridded hydrologic components of TOPLATS land surface model and statistic flash flood index model. The accuracy of this method is also examined in this study. The study area is the national capital region of Korea, and 38 flash flood damages had occurred from 2009 to 2012. The spatio-temporal resolutions of land surface model are 1 h and 1 km, respectively. The gridded meteorological data are generated using the inverse distance weight method with automatic weather stations (AWSs) of Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). The hydrological components (e.g., surface runoff, soil water contents, and water table depth) of cells corresponding to the positions of 38 flood damages reasonably respond to the cell based hourly rainfalls. Under the total rainfall condition, the gridded flash flood index shows 71% to 87% from 4 h to 6 h in the lead time based on the rescue request time and 42% to 52% of accuracy at 0 h which means that the time period of the lead time is in a limited rescue request time. From these results, it is known that the gridded flash flood index using the cell based hydrological components from land surface model and the statistic flash flood index model have a capability to predict flash flood in the mountainous area.