Nonvolatile Si/SiO₂/SiN/SiO₂ Si type polycrystalline silicon thin-film-transistor memory with nanowire channels for improvement of erasing characteristics

A silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon type polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistor (poly-Si TFT) with nanowire channels was investigated for both transistor and memory applications. The poly-Si TFT memory device has superior electrical characteristics, such as higher drain current, smaller threshold voltage, and steeper subthreshold slope. Also, the simulation result on electrical field reveals that the electrical field across the tunnel oxide is enhanced and that across the blocking oxide is reduced at the corner regions. This will lead to the parasitic gate injection activity and the erasing speed can be apparently improved in the memory device due to the pronounced corner effect and narrow channel width.