Novel two-bit HfO2 nanocrystal nonvolatile flash memory

Yu Hsien Lin*, Chao-Hsin Chien, Ching Tzung Lin, Chun Yen Chang, Tan Fu Lei

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    42 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    This paper presents a novel nonvolatile poly-Si-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon-type Flash memory that was fabricated using hafnium oxide (HfO2) nanocrystals as the trapping storage layer. The formation of HfO2 nanocrystals was confirmed using a number of physical analytical techniques, including energy-dispersive spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. These newly developed HfO2 nanocrystal memory cells exhibit very little lateral or vertical stored charge migration after 10 k program/erase (P/E) cycles. According to the temperature-activated Arrhenius model, we estimate that the activation energy lies within the range 2.1-3.3 eV. These HfO2 nanocrystal memories exhibit excellent data retention, endurance, and good reliability, even for the cells subjected to 10 k P/E cycles. These features suggest that such cells are very useful for high-density two-bit nonvolatile Flash memory applications.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)782-789
    Number of pages8
    JournalIEEE Transactions on Electron Devices
    Volume53
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 1 Apr 2006

    Keywords

    • Flash memory
    • Hafnium oxide (HfO)
    • Nanocrystals
    • Nonvolatile memories

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