• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.35-38
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• 2002

In this paper, the characteristics of channel hot electron (CHE) injection for the write operation in a NOR-type SONOS flash memory with common source line were investigated. The thicknesses of he tunnel oxide, the memory nitride， and the blocking oxide layers for the gate insulator of the fabricated SONOS devices were $34{\AA}$, $73{\AA}$, and $34{\AA}$, respectively. The SONOS devices compared to floating gate devices have many advantages, which are a simpler cell structure, compatibility with conventional logic CMOS process and a superior scalability. For these reasons, the introduction of SONOS device has stimulated. In the conventional SONOS devices, Modified Folwer-Nordheim (MFN) tunneling and CHE injection for writing require high voltages, which are typically in the range of 9 V to 15 V. However CHE injection in our devices was achieved with the single power supply of 5 V. To demonstrate CHE injection, substrate current (Isub) and one-shot programming curve were investigated. The memory window of about 3.2 V and the write speed of $100{\mu}s$ were obtained. Also, the disturbance and drain turn-on leakage during CHE injection were not affected in the SONOS array. These results show that CHE injection can be achieved with a low voltage and single power supply, and applied for the high speed program of the SONOS memory devices.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.138-142
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• 2019

As the NAND flash memory goes to 3D vertical Silicon-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (SONOS) structure, the lateral charge migration can be critical in the reliability performance. Even more, with miniaturization of flash memory cell device, just a little movement of trapped charge can cause reliability problems. In this paper, we propose a method of predicting the trapped charge profile in the retention mode. Charge diffusivity in the charge trapping layer (Si₃N₄) was extracted experimentally, and the effect on the trapped charge profile was demonstrated by the simulation and experiment.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.15 no.10
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• pp.831-837
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• 2002

Scaled SONOS transistors have been fabricated by 0.35$\mu\textrm{m}$ CMOS standard logic process. The thickness of stacked ONO(blocking oxide, memory nitride, tunnel oxide) gate insulators measured by TEM are 2.5 nm, 4.0 nm and 2.4 nm, respectively. The SONOS memories have shown low programming voltages of ${\pm}$8.5 V and long-term retention of 10-year Even after 2 ${\times}$ 10$\^$5/ program/erase cycles, the leakage current of unselected transistor in the erased state was low enough that there was no error in read operation and we could distinguish the programmed state from the erased states precisely The tight distribution of the threshold voltages in the programmed and the erased states could remove complex verifying process caused by over-erase in floating gate flash memory, which is one of the main advantages of the charge-trap type devices. A single power supply operation of 3 V and a high endurance of 1${\times}$10$\^$6/ cycles can be realized by the programming method for a flash-erased type EEPROM.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.65-71
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• 2010

NAND-type SONOS with a separated double-gate FinFET structure (SDF-Fin SONOS) flash memory devices are proposed to reduce the unit cell size of the memory device and increase the memory density in comparison with conventional non volatile memory devices. The proposed memory device consists of a pair of control gates separated along the direction of the Fin width. There are two unique alternative technologies in this study. One is a channel doping method and the other is an oxide thickness variation method, which are used to operate the SDF-Fin SONOS memory device as two-bit. The fabrication processes and the device characteristics are simulated by using technology comuter-adided(TCAD). The simulation results indicate that the charge trap probability depends on the different channel doping concentration and the tunneling oxide thickness. The proposed SDG-Fin SONOS memory devices hold promise for potential application.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.139-142
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• 2013

Silicon nanowire (SiNW) silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) flash memory devices were fabricated and their electrical characteristics were analyzed. Compared to planar SONOS devices, these SiNW SONOS devices have good program/erase (P/E) characteristics and a large threshold voltage ($V_T$) shift of 2.5 V in 1ms using a gate pulse of +14 V. The devices also show excellent immunity to short channel effects (SCEs) due to enhanced gate controllability, which becomes more apparent as the nanowire width decreases. This is attributed to the fully depleted mode operation as the nanowire becomes narrower. 3D TCAD simulations of both devices show that the electric field of the junction area is significantly reduced in the SiNW structure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2002.07a
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• pp.54-57
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• 2002

In this study, a new programming method, to minimize the generation of Si-SiO$_2$ interface traps of scaled SONOS flash memory as a function of number of program/erase cycles has been proposed. In the proposed programming method, power supply voltage is applied to the gate, forward biased program voltage is applied to the source and the drain, while the substrate is left open, so that the program is achieved by Modified Fowler-Nordheim (MFN) tunneling of electron through the tunnel oxide over source and drain region. For the channel erase, erase voltage is applied to the gate, power supply voltage is applied to the substrate, and the source and drain are open. A single power supply operation of 3 V and a high endurance of 1${\times}$10$\^$6/ prograss/erase cycles can be realized by the proposed programming method. The asymmetric mode in which the program voltage is higher than the erase voltage, is more efficient than symmetric mode in order to minimize the degradation characteristics of scaled SONOS devices because electrical stress applied to the Si-SiO$_2$ interface is reduced by short programming time.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.183-186
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• 2015

This research investigates the impact of charge spreading on the data retention of three-dimensional (3D) silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) flash memory where the charge trapping layer is shared along the cell string. In order to do so, this study conducts an electrical analysis of the planar SONOS test pattern where the silicon nitride charge storage layer is not isolated but extends beyond the gate electrode. Experimental results from the test pattern show larger retention loss in the devices with extended storage layers compared to isolated devices. This retention degradation is thought to be the result of an additional charge spreading through the extended silicon nitride layer along the width of the memory cell, which should be improved for the successful 3-D application of SONOS flash devices.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.771-774
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• 2003

In this paper, the programming characteristics of the multi-bit devices based on SONOS structure are investigated. Our devices have been fabricated by 0.35 $\mu\textrm{m}$ complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process with LOCOS isolation. In order to achieve the multi-bit operation per cell, charges must be locally frapped in the nitride layer above the channel near the source-drain junction. Programming method is selected by Channel Hot Electron (CUE) injection which is available for localized trap in nitride film. To demonstrate CHE injection, substrate current (Isub) and one-shot programming curve are investigated. The multi-bit operation which stores two-bit per cell is investigated. Also, Hot Hole(HH) injection for fast erasing is used. The fabricated SONOS devices have ultra-thinner gate dielectrics and then have lower programming voltage, simpler process and better scalability compared to any other multi-bit storage Flash memory. Our programming characteristics are shown to be the most promising for the multi-bit flash memory.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.1017-1021
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• 2007

To implement tera bit level non-volatile memories of low power and fast operation, proving statistical reproductivity and satisfying reliabilities at the nano-scale are a key challenge. We fabricate the charge trapping nano scaled SONOS unit memories and 64 bit flash arrays and evaluate reliability and performance of them. In case of the dielectric stack thickness of 4.5 /9.3 /6.5 nm with the channel width and length of 34 nm and 31nm respectively, the device has about 3.5 V threshold voltage shift with write voltage of $10\;{\mu}s$, 15 V and erase voltage of 10 ms, -15 V. And retention and endurance characteristics are above 10 years and $10^5$ cycle, respectively. The device with LDD(Lightly Doped Drain) process shows reduction of short channel effect and GIDL(Gate Induced Drain Leakage) current. Moreover we investigate three different types of flash memory arrays.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.134-137
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• 2019

In this paper, the data retention characteristics were analyzed to find out the thickness effect on the trap energy distribution of silicon nitride in the silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) flash memory devices. The nitride films were prepared by low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD). The flat band voltage shift in the programmed device was measured at the elevated temperatures to observe the thermal excitation of electrons from the nitride traps in the retention mode. The trap energy distribution was extracted using the charge decay rates and the experimental results show that the portion of the shallow interface trap in the total nitride trap amount including interface and bulk trap increases as the nitride thickness decreases.