A 32k×8 radiation-hardened CMOS/SONOS EEPROM

Author

Williams, David ; Bishop, Ruth ; Loyd, Andrew ; Adams, Dennis ; Murray, James ; Knoll, Michael

Author_Institution

Northrop Grumman Corp., Baltimore, MD, USA

fYear

1998

fDate

22-24 Jun 1998

Firstpage

20

Lastpage

21

Abstract

A 32k×8 radiation tolerant CMOS/SONOS EEPROM is described. The technology is a 1.2 micrometer radiation tolerant CMOS process into which is incorporated an oxide-nitride-oxide nonvolatile memory dielectric. This ONO dielectric, when used as the gate dielectric of an n-channel MOSFET, forms the variable threshold transistor which is the basis for the EEPROM. Charge is stored by tunneling into traps in the nitride, rather than on a floating gate as is done with most EEPROMs. No hot electron effects are used for programming or erase, so programming and erase power dissipation are quite low. The circuit was designed at Sandia National Labs and the device was fabricated by Northrop Grumman Corporation

Keywords

CMOS memory circuits; EPROM; PLD programming; dielectric thin films; electron traps; elemental semiconductors; hole traps; integrated circuit design; integrated circuit yield; microprogramming; radiation hardening (electronics); silicon; tunnelling; 1.2 micron; 256 kbit; 32 kbit; EEPROM; ONO dielectric; Si; Si-SiO₂-Si₃N₄-SiO₂-Si; charge storage; circuit design; device fabrication; erase power dissipation; floating gate; gate dielectric; hot electron effects; n-channel MOSFET; nitride traps; oxide-nitride-oxide nonvolatile memory dielectric; programming power dissipation; radiation tolerant CMOS process; radiation tolerant CMOS/SONOS EEPROM; radiation-hardened CMOS/SONOS EEPROM; tunneling; variable threshold transistor; CMOS process; CMOS technology; Dielectrics; EPROM; Electron traps; MOSFET circuits; Nonvolatile memory; Power dissipation; SONOS devices; Tunneling;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nonvolatile Memory Technology Conference, 1998. 1998 Proceedings. Seventh Biennial IEEE

Conference_Location

Albuquerque, NM

Print_ISBN

0-7803-4518-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NVMT.1998.723209

Filename

723209