• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.727-736
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• 1995

This paper examines the characteristics and physical properties of the scaled MONOS nonvolatile memory device for low programming voltage EEPROM. The capacitor-type MONOS memory devices with the nitride thicknesses ranging from 41.angs. to 600.angs. have been fabricated. As a result, the 5V-programmable MONOS device has been obtained with a 20ms programming time by scaling the nitride thickness to 57.angs. with a tunneling oxide thickness of 19.angs. and a blocking oxide thickness of 20.angs.. Measurement results of the quasi-static C-V curves indicate, after 10$\^$6/ write/erase cycles, that the devices are degraded due to the increase of the silicon-tunneling oxide interface traps. The 10-year retention is impossible for the device with a nitride less than 129.angs.. However, the MONOS memory device with 10-year retentivity has been obtained by increasing the blocking oxide thickness to 47.angs.. Also, the memory traps such as the nitride bulk trap and the blocking oxide-nitride interface trap have been investigated by measuring the maximum flatband voltage shift and analyzing through the best fitting method.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.245-248
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• 2014

$Pt/Al_2O_3/Si_3N_4/SiO_2/Si$ charge trap flash memory structures with various thicknesses of the $Si_3N_4$ charge trapping layer were fabricated. According to the calculated and measured results, we depicted electron loss in a schematic diagram that illustrates how the trap to band tunneling and thermal excitation affects electrons loss behavior with the change of $Si_3N_4$ thickness, temperature and trap energy levels. As a result, we deduce that $Si_3N_4$ thicknesses of more than 6 or less than 4.3 nm give no contribution to improving memory performance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.7-8
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• 2008

The memory characteristics of charge trap flash (CTF) with $HfO_2$ charge trap layer were investigated. Especially, we focused on the effects of tunnel barrier engineering consisted of $SiO_2/Si_3N_4/SiO_2$ (ONO) stack or $Si_3N_4/SiO_2/Si_3N_4$ (NON) stack. The programming and erasing characteristics were significantly enhanced by using ONO or NON tunnel barrier. These improvement are due to the increase of tunneling current by using engineered tunnel barrier. As a result, the engineered tunnel barrier is a promising technique for non-volatile flash memory applications.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.822-827
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• 2000

The Si-SiO$_2$interface trap and nitride bulk trap distribution of SONOSFET(polysilicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor) NVSM (nonvolatile semiconductor memory) cell is investigated by single junction charge pumping method. The device was fabricated by 0.35㎛ standard logic fabrication process including the ONO stack dielectrics. The thickness of ONO dielectricis are 24$\AA$ for tunnel oxide, 74 $\AA$ for nitride and 25 $\AA$ for blocking oxide, respectively. By the use of single junction charge pumping method, the lateral profiles of both interface and memory traps can be calculated directly from experimental charge pumping results without complex numerical simulation. The interface traps were almost uniformly distributed over the whole channel region and its maximum value was 7.97$\times$10$\^$10/㎠. The memory traps were uniformly distributed in the nitride layer and its maximum value was 1.04$\times$10$\^$19/㎤. The degradation characteristics of SONOSFET with write/erase cycling also were investigated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.94-95
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• 2007

In this paper, the dependence of electrical characteristics of Silicon-$Al_2O_3$-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (SANOS) memory cell transistors and program speed, reliability of memory device on interface trap between Si substrate and tunneling oxide was investigated. The devices were fabricated by the identical processing in a single lot except the deposition method of the charge trapping layer, nitride. In the case of P/E speed, it was shown that P/E speed is slower in the SONOS cell transistors with larger interface trap density by charge blocking effect, which is confirmed by simulation results. However, the data retention characteristics show much less dependence on interface trap. Therefore, to improve SANOS memory characteristic, it is very important to optimize the interface trap and charge trapping layer.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.360-369
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• 2012

The causes of showing different subthreshold slopes (SS) in programmed and erased states for two different charge trap flash (CTF) memory devices, SONOS type flash memory with gate-all-around (GAA) structure and TANOS type NAND flash memory with planar structure were investigated. To analyze the difference in SSs, TCAD simulation and low-frequency noise (LFN) measurement were fulfilled. The device simulation was performed to compare SSs considering the gate electric field effect to the channel and to check the localized trapped charge distribution effect in nitride layer while the comparison of noise power spectrum was carried out to inspect the generation of interface traps ($N_{IT}$). When each cell in the measured two memory devices is erased, the normalized LFN power is increased by one order of magnitude, which is attributed to the generation of $N_{IT}$ originated by the movement of hydrogen species ($h^*$) from the interface. As a result, the SS is degraded for the GAA SONOS memory device when erased where the $N_{IT}$ generation is a prominent factor. However, the TANOS memory cell is relatively immune to the SS degradation effect induced by the generated $N_{IT}$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.415-416
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• 2009

The tunnel barrier engineered charge trap flash (TBE-CTF) non-volatile memory using CRESTED tunneling barrier was fabricated by stacking thin $Si_3N_4$ and $SiO_2$ dielectric layers. Moreover, high-k based $HfO_2$ charge trap layer and $Al_2O_3$ blocking layer were used for further improvement of the NVM (non-volatile memory) performances. The programming/erasing speed, endurance and data retention of TBE-CTF memory was evaluated.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.45 no.7
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• pp.37-43
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• 2008

In this paper, the dependence of electrical characteristics of Silicon-$Al_2O_3$-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (SANOS) memory cell transistors and program/erase (P/E) speed, reliability of memory device on interface trap between Si substrate and tunneling oxide and bulk trap in nitride layer were investigated using charge pumping method which has advantage of simple and versatile technique. We analyzed different SANOS memory devices that were fabricated by the identical processing in a single lot except the deposition method of the charge trapping layer, nitride. In the case of P/E speed, it was shown that P/E speed is slower in the SANOS cell transistors with larger capture cross section and interface trap density by charge blocking effect, which is confirmed by simulation results. However, the data retention characteristics show much less dependence on interface trap. The data retention was deteriorated as increasing P/E cycling number but not coincides with interface trap increasing tendency. This result once again confirmed that interface trap independence on data retention. And the result on different program method shows that HCI program method more degraded by locally trapping. So, we know as a result of experiment that analysis the SANOS Flash memory characteristic using charge pumping method reflect the device performance related to interface and bulk trap.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.34-34
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• 2009

The electrical characteristics of tunnel barrier engineered charge trap flash (TBE-CTF) memory with $SiO_2/Si_3N_4/SiO_2/Si$ engineered tunnel barrier, $HfO_2$ charge trap layer and $Al_2O_3$ blocking oxide layer (MAHONOS) were investigated. The energy bad diagram was designed by using the quantum-mechanical tunnel model (QM) and then the CTF memory devices were fabricated. As a result, the best thickness combination of MAHONOS is confirmed. Moreover, not enhanced P/E speed (Program: about $10^6$ times) (Erase: about $10^4$ times) but also enhanced retention and endurance characteristics are represented.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.187-189
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• 2015

A charge-trap flash (CTF) thin film transistor (TFT) memory is proposed at a low-temperature process (≤ 450℃). The memory cell consists of a sputtered oxide-nitride-oxide (ONO) gate dielectric and Schottky barrier (SB) source/drain (S/D) junctions using nickel silicide. These components enable the ultra-low-temperature process to be successfully achieved with the ONO gate stacks that have a substrate temperature of room temperature and S/D junctions that have an annealing temperature of 200℃. The silicidation process was optimized by measuring the electrical characteristics of the Ni-silicided Schottky diodes. As a result, the Ion/Ioff current ratio is about 1.4×10⁵ and the subthreshold swing and field effect mobility are 0.42 V/dec and 14 cm²/V·s at a drain voltage of −1 V, respectively.