Multibit Polycristalline Silicon–Oxide–Silicon Nitride–Oxide–Silicon Memory Cells with High Density Designed Utilizing a Separated Control Gate

Thin films of amorphous silicon oxide and silicon nitride are routinely used as gate dielectrics in silicon-based microelectronic devices. It is valuable to be able to image them and measure their thicknesses quickly and accurately. This brief note describes conditions that can be used to obtain accurate and reproducible TEM images of oxide-nitride-oxide (ONO) thin films.Obtaining adequate contrast differences between oxide and nitride is not trivial because they have the same average atomic number, and both phases are amorphous. As stoichiometric compounds, both SiO2 and Si3N4 would have average atomic numbers equal to 10. For SiO2, (14+2(8))/3=10, and for Si3N4, (3(14)+4(7))/7=10. Thus, the atomic number contrast between these two is weak or nonexistent. Similarly, the amorphous character prevents the use of conventional diffraction contrast techniques.However, the density of Si3N4 (3.2 g/cm3) is considerably greater than the density of SiO2 (2.6 g/cm3), reflecting the higher average coordination of N compared with O.

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Electron trap density distribution of Si-rich silicon nitride extracted using the modified negative charge decay model of silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon structure at elevated temperatures

Applied Physics Letters ◽

10.1063/1.2335619 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 89 (6) ◽

pp. 063508 ◽

Cited By ~ 49

Author(s):

Tae Hun Kim ◽

Il Han Park ◽

Jong Duk Lee ◽

Hyung Cheol Shin ◽

Byung-Gook Park

Keyword(s):

Silicon Nitride ◽

Density Distribution ◽

Elevated Temperatures ◽

Silicon Oxide ◽

Negative Charge ◽

Electron Trap ◽

Trap Density ◽

Silicon Structure ◽

Charge Decay ◽

Nitride Oxide

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Gated twin-bit silicon–oxide–nitride–oxide–silicon NAND flash memory for high-density nonvolatile memory

Japanese Journal of Applied Physics ◽

10.7567/jjap.54.064201 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 54 (6) ◽

pp. 064201

Author(s):

Yoon Kim ◽

Won Bo Shim ◽

Byung-Gook Park

Keyword(s):

Flash Memory ◽

Nonvolatile Memory ◽

Silicon Oxide ◽

High Density ◽

Nand Flash ◽

Nand Flash Memory ◽

Nitride Oxide

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Suppression of parasitic electron injection in silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon-type memory cells using high-k capping layers

Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B Microelectronics and Nanometer Structures Processing Measurement and Phenomena ◽

10.1116/1.3021020 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 482 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

T. Erlbacher ◽

T. Graf ◽

N. DasGupta ◽

A. J. Bauer ◽

H. Ryssel

Keyword(s):

Silicon Oxide ◽

Electron Injection ◽

Memory Cells ◽

High K ◽

Nitride Oxide

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Investigation of Intra-Nitride Charge Migration Suppression in SONOS Flash Memory

Micromachines ◽

10.3390/mi10060356 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (6) ◽

pp. 356 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Seung-Dong Yang ◽

Jun-Kyo Jung ◽

Jae-Gab Lim ◽

Seong-gye Park ◽

Hi-Deok Lee ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Silicon Nitride ◽

Photoelectron Spectroscopy ◽

Flash Memory ◽

Silicon Oxide ◽

Charge Trapping ◽

Charge Migration ◽

Charge Loss ◽

Capacitance Voltage ◽

Nitride Oxide ◽

N2 Plasma

In order to suppress the intra-nitride charge spreading in 3D Silicon-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (SONOS) flash memory where the charge trapping layer silicon nitride is shared along the cell string, N2 plasma treated on the silicon nitride is proposed. Experimental results show that the charge loss decreased in the plasma treated device after baking at 300 °C for 2 h. To extract trap density according to the location in the trapping layer, capacitance-voltage analysis was used and N2 plasma treatment was shown to be effective to restrain the interface trap formation between blocking oxide and silicon nitride. Moreover, from X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, the reduction of Si-O-N bonding was observed.

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