Threshold-Voltage statistics and conduction regimes in nanocrystal memories

Author

Gusmeroli, Riccardo ; Spinelli, Alessandro S. ; Compagnoni, Christian Monzio ; Ielmini, Daniele

Author_Institution

Dipt. di Elettronica e Informazione, IU.NET, Milano, Italy

Volume

27

Issue

5

fYear

2006

fDate

5/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

409

Lastpage

411

Abstract

Results of three-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations of nanocrystal (NC) memory cells are presented to investigate the statistical properties of the threshold-voltage shift (ΔV_T). It is shown that NC-number fluctuations dominate the ΔV_T spread in the ON-state cell conduction regime, while percolation effects add a significant contribution to the statistical spread in the subthreshold region. The dependence of the ΔV_T statistics on the cell geometry is also investigated, which shows that NC number and position fluctuations can strongly affect the memory performance and must be suitably modeled.

Keywords

Monte Carlo methods; integrated circuit modelling; integrated memory circuits; nanostructured materials; 3D Monte Carlo simulation; cell geometry; nanocrystal memory cells; percolative conduction; threshold-voltage shift; Fluctuations; Geometry; Joining processes; Monte Carlo methods; Nanocrystals; Nonvolatile memory; Semiconductor device modeling; Solid modeling; Statistics; Substrates; Nanocrystal (NC) memories; percolative conduction; semiconductor device modeling;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2006.873754

Filename

1626472