Characterization of hot-hole injection induced SILC and related disturbs in flash memories

Author

Yih, Cherng-Ming ; Ho, Zhi-Hao ; Liang, Mong-Song ; Chung, Steve S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. Eng., Nat. Chiao Tung Univ., Hsinchu, Taiwan

Volume

48

Issue

2

fYear

2001

fDate

2/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

300

Lastpage

306

Abstract

In this paper, we have proposed a new method for the study of disturb failure mechanisms caused by stress induced leakage current (SILC) in source-side erased flash memories. This method is able to directly separate the individual components of SILC due to either carrier charging/discharging in the oxide or the positive charge/trap assisted electron tunneling into the floating gate. In addition, the present method is very sensitive with capability of measuring ultralow current (<10^-19 A). Results show that, at low oxide field, the disturb is mainly contributed by the so-called charging/discharging of carriers into/from the oxide due to the capacitance coupling effect. While at high oxide field, the positive charge/trap assisted electron tunneling induced floating-gate charge variation is the major cause of disturb failure

Keywords

failure analysis; flash memories; hot carriers; leakage currents; tunnelling; capacitance coupling; carrier charging; carrier discharging; disturb failure; electron tunneling; flash memory; floating gate; hot hole injection; oxide field; positive charge assisted tunneling; source side erasure; stress induced leakage current; trap assisted tunneling; Capacitance measurement; Current measurement; Electron traps; Failure analysis; Flash memory; Hot carriers; Leakage current; Nonvolatile memory; Stress; Tunneling;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/16.902731

Filename

902731