Investigation of random telegraph noise characteristics of Hf-based MONOS nonvolatile memory devices with HfO2 and HfON tunneling layer

This paper investigated the low frequency noise (LFN) utilizing 1/f noise and random telegraph noise (RTN) characteristics of Hf-based metal/oxide/nitride/oxide/silicon (MONOS) nonvolatile memory (NVM) device with HfO2 and HfON tunneling layer (TL). The low frequency noise spectral density (SID ) was investigated to evaluate the interface characteristics with fresh and after programming/erasing (P/E) cycles of 104. Both devices show similar slope of ~1/f in all of the frequency regions. Although HfON TL shows high SID compared to HfO2 TL, increased ratio is 15.4 which is low compared to HfO2 TL of 21.3. As decreasing the channel length from 10 to 2 μm, HfON TL shows small increased ratio of SID . Due to the nitrided characteristics, HfON TL suppress the degradation of interface. Finally, it is found that trap site of HfO2 TL is located near the interface by RTN measurement with capture (τC) and emission time constant (τE).