Pulsed tunnel programming of nonvolatile memories

Author

Irrera, Fernanda ; Riccò, Bruno

Author_Institution

DIE, Universita di Roma "La Sapienza", Rome, Italy

Volume

50

Issue

12

fYear

2003

Firstpage

2474

Lastpage

2480

Abstract

This paper investigates the use of Fowler-Nordheim tunneling for Flash memories programming looking for a good tradeoff between applied voltage (to relax requirements for on-chip circuitry), program time and oxide stress-induced leakage current (SILC) degradation. Exploiting the results of a recent study of trap dynamics under pulsed tunnel conditions, it is shown that by means of a small number of relatively high voltage pulses, memories featuring oxide thickness of 7 nm can be programmed in about 20 μs with smaller SILC degradation than commonly achieved with programming times in the ms range.

Keywords

PLD programming; flash memories; interface states; leakage currents; tunnelling; Fowler-Nordheim tunneling; applied voltage; flash memories; nonvolatile memories; on-chip circuitry requirements; oxide stress-induced leakage current degradation; program throughput; program time; pulsed tunnel programming; relatively high voltage pulses; trap dynamics; Circuits; Degradation; Dynamic programming; Electrons; Flash memory; Leakage current; Microelectronics; Nonvolatile memory; Tunneling; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TED.2003.820125

Filename

1255611