Program charge effect on random telegraph noise amplitude and its device structural dependence in SONOS flash memory

Author

Chiu, J.P. ; Chou, Y.L. ; Ma, H.C. ; Wang, Tahui ; Ku, S.H. ; Zou, N.K. ; Chen, Vincent ; Lu, W.P. ; Chen, K.C. ; Chih-Yuan Lu

Author_Institution

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

fYear

2009

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

Nitride program charge effects on random telegraph noise (RTN) in SONOS flash cells are investigated. We measure and simulate RTN amplitudes in floating gate flash, planar SONOS, and FinFET SONOS cells. We find that a planar SONOS has a wide spread in RTN amplitude after programming while a floating gate flash cell has identical RTN amplitude in erase and program states. The spread of program-state RTN amplitudes in a planar SONOS is attributed to a current-path percolation effect caused by random discrete nitride charges. The program-state RTN spread can be significantly reduced in FinFET SONOS.

Keywords

MOSFET; flash memories; nitrogen compounds; random noise; semiconductor-insulator-semiconductor devices; FinFET SONOS cells; RTN amplitude; SONOS flash cells; SONOS flash memory; current-path percolation effect; device structural dependence; floating gate flash cell; nitride program charge effects; planar SONOS; random discrete nitride charges; random telegraph noise amplitude; FinFETs; Flash memory; Fluctuations; Industrial electronics; Noise level; Nonvolatile memory; SONOS devices; Tail; Telegraphy; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), 2009 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-5639-0

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-5640-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IEDM.2009.5424210

Filename

5424210