Au纳米晶MIS结构存储性能研究

从器件结构和能带的角度分析了提高非易失性存储器性能的可能途径,建立了纳米晶浮栅结构的存储模型,并在模型中考虑了量子限制效应对纳米晶存储性能的影响.基于模型计算,分析了纳米晶材料、高k隧穿介质材料及其厚度对纳米晶浮栅结构存储性能的影响.同时,制作了MIS结构(Si/ZrO2/Au Ncs/SiO2/Al)的存储单元,针对该存储单元的电荷存储能力和电荷保持特性进行测试,并对测试结果进行分析.     

金属纳米晶快闪存储器研究进展

金属纳米晶具有态密度高、费米能级选择范围广以及无多维载流子限制效应等优越性,预示着金属纳米晶快闪存储器在下一代闪存器件中具有很好的应用前景。从金属纳米晶存储器的工作原理、纳米晶的制备方法、以及新型介质材料和电荷俘获层结构等方面,对金属纳米晶存储器近年来的研究进展进行了总结。     

纳米晶非挥发性存储器研究进展

介绍了纳米晶非挥发性存储器的发展状况和基本工作原理,比较了纳米晶非挥发性存储器所涉及到的各种不同的电荷输运机制,系统介绍了纳米晶非挥发性存储器在纳米晶材料设计、纳米晶晶体生长控制方法、隧穿/控制介质层工程和新型存储器器件结构等方面的一些最新研究进展,对纳米晶非挥发性存储器的研究趋势进行了展望。     

基于锗硅异质纳米晶的非易失浮栅存储器的存储特性

利用自组织生长和选择化学刻蚀方法在超薄SiO2隧穿氧化层上制备了渐变锗硅异质纳米晶,并通过电容.电压特性和电容-时间特性研究了该纳米结构浮栅存储器的存储特性.测试结果表明,该异质纳米晶非易失浮栅存储器具有良好的空穴存储特性,这是由于渐变锗硅异质纳米晶中Ge的价带高于Si的价带形成了复合势垒,空穴有效地存储在复合势垒的Ge的一侧.     

基于锗硅异质纳米晶的非易失浮栅存储器的存储特性

利用自组织生长和选择化学刻蚀方法在超薄SiO2隧穿氧化层上制备了渐变锗硅异质纳米晶,并通过电容.电压特性和电容-时间特性研究了该纳米结构浮栅存储器的存储特性.测试结果表明,该异质纳米晶非易失浮栅存储器具有良好的空穴存储特性,这是由于渐变锗硅异质纳米晶中Ge的价带高于Si的价带形成了复合势垒,空穴有效地存储在复合势垒的Ge的一侧.     

包含双层半导体和金属纳米晶MOS电容的存储特性

制备了包含双层半导体和金属纳米晶的MOS电容结构,研究了其在非挥发性存储器领域的应用。利用真空电子束蒸发技术,在二氧化硅介质中得到了半导体硅纳米晶和金属镍纳米晶。与包含单层纳米晶的MOS电容相比,这种包含双层异质纳米晶的MOS电容显示出更大的存储能力,且保留性能得到改善。说明顶层的金属纳米晶作为一层额外的电荷俘获层可以通过直接隧穿机制进一步延长保留时间和提高平带电压漂移量。     

利用同步晶化法制备的镍纳米晶的电荷存储特性

快速退火纳米晶化法是目前常用的金属纳米晶制备方法,但其后续600~900℃高温退火会降低器件的电学特性和可靠性。本文提出了热预算低的金属纳米晶制备的新方法—沉积过程中的同步金属薄膜原位纳米晶化法,可以省掉后续单独的退火处理工艺,使金属薄膜同步产生纳米晶化,降低工艺热功耗及简化工艺,从而有效地改善上述薄膜沉积后退火纳米晶化法的不足。在不同衬底温度（250~325 ?C）下,利用同步纳米晶化法制备镍纳米晶存储器。随着生长温度的增加,其存储窗口先增加到最大值再降低。衬底温度为300 ?C时,其存储窗口（2.78 V）最大。与快速热退火法镍纳米晶存储器相比较,同步纳米晶化法制备镍纳米晶存储器具有更强的电荷存储能力。另外,研究了不同操作电压和脉冲时间下器件的平带电压偏移量,当操作电压增加到±10 V时出现了较大的平带电压偏移量,这表明器件发生了大量的载流子（电子和空穴）注入现象。最后,模拟了金属纳米晶存储器的载流子（电子和空穴）注入和释放过程。     

金属纳米晶存储器件数据保持能力建模与验证

金属纳米晶存储器件具有低功耗、高速读写特性及较高的可靠性,因此近年来在非易失存储器研究领域备受关注.对比分析讨论了量子限制效应与库仑阻塞效应对金属纳米晶费密能级的影响后,发现库仑阻塞效应会严重削弱器件数据保持能力.在综合考虑金属纳米晶量子限制效应和库仑阻塞效应的基础上,提出了金属纳米晶存储器件数据保持能力分析模型,并通过与相关研究文献的实验数据对比分析,证实了本模型的合理性.     

基于硅纳米晶的非挥发存储器制备与存储特性

硅纳米晶非挥发存储器由于其卓越的性能以及与传统工艺的高度兼容性,近来引起高度关注。采用两步低压化学气相淀积(LPCVD)生长方式制备硅纳米晶(Si-NC),该方法所制备的硅纳米晶具有密度高、可控性好的特点,且完全兼容于传统CMOS工艺。在此基础上制作四端硅纳米晶非挥发存储器,该器件展示出良好的存储特性,包括10 V操作电压下快速地擦写,数据保持特性的显著提高,以及在105次擦写周期以后阈值电压(Vt)飘移低于10%的良好耐受性。该器件在未来高性能非挥发存储器应用上极具潜质。     

SONOS非易失性存储器件研究进展

随着半导体存储器件的小型化、微型化,传统多晶硅浮栅存储因为叠层厚度过大,对隧穿氧化层绝缘性要求过高而难以适应未来存储器的发展要求。最近,基于绝缘性能优异的氮化硅的SONOS非易失性存储器件,以其相对于传统多晶硅浮栅存储器更强的电荷存储能力、易于实现小型化和工艺简单等特性而重新受到重视。文章论述了SONOS非易失性存储器件的存储原理和存储性能的影响因素研究进展,并在材料、工艺与结构设计等方面对SONOS存储器件性能改进的研究进展情况进行了分析和讨论。     

Impact of high-κ dielectric and metal nanoparticles in simultaneous enhancement of programming speed and retention time of nano-flash memory

A methodology to simulate memory structures with metal nanocrystal islands embedded as floating gate in a high-κ dielectric material for simultaneous enhancement of programming speed and retention time is presented. The computational concept is based on a model for charge transport in nano-scaled structures presented earlier, where quantum mechanical tunneling is defined through the wave impedance that is analogous to the transmission line theory. The effects of substrate-tunnel dielectric conduction band offset and metal work function on the tunneling current that determines the programming speed and retention time is demonstrated. Simulation results confirm that a high-κ dielectric material can increase programming current due to its lower conduction band offset with the substrate and also can be effectively integrated with suitable embedded metal nanocrystals having high work function for efficient data retention. A nano-memory cell designed with silver (Ag) nanocrystals embedded in Al₂O₃ has been compared with similar structure consisting of Si nanocrystals in SiO₂ to validate the concept.     

Nonvolatile memory with a metal nanocrystal/nitride heterogeneous floating-gate

Heterogeneous floating-gates consisting of metal nanocrystals and silicon nitride (Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/) for nonvolatile memory applications have been fabricated and characterized. By combining the self-assembled Au nanocrystals and plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) nitride layer, the heterogeneous-stack devices can achieve enhanced retention, endurance, and low-voltage program/erase characteristics over single-layer nanocrystals or nitride floating-gate memories. The metal nanocrystals at the lower stack enable the direct tunneling mechanism during program/erase to achieve low-voltage operation and good endurance, while the nitride layer at the upper stack works as an additional charge trap layer to enlarge the memory window and significantly improve the retention time. The write/erase time of the heterogeneous stack is almost the same as that of the single-layer metal nanocrystals. In addition, we could further enhance the memory window by stacking more nanocrystal/nitride heterogeneous layers, as long as the effective oxide thickness from the control gate is still within reasonable ranges to control the short channel effects.     

Charging simulations in nanocrystal quantum flash memories

The comprehension of the charging of a floating gate composed of nanocrystals (NCs) in a non-volatile flash memory is a real challenge. A few electrons tunnel from the channel of a metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor into the two-dimensional array of nanocrystals.A realistic three-dimensional model is proposed for electron tunneling into the floating gate. The energy subbands of the channel are explicitly included, together with the doping density. The model is solved thanks to a finite element method.Therefore many simulations can be carried out to better understand the relation between the tunneling times for charging a single NC, or the whole NC floating gate, and the geometrical parameters for example. Moreover a detailed statistical study concerning the dispersion of the relevant parameters can be led, helping the experimentalists to determine the optimal operating conditions of quantum flash memories.     

Asymmetric electric field enhancement in nanocrystal memories

The electrostatic model for nanocrystal memories is used to illustrate the fundamental difference of the metal nanocrystal memory in low-voltage program/erase (P/E) operations in comparison with semiconductor nanocrystal and trap-based memories. Due to repulsion of potential contours inside conductors, the metal nanocrystals will significantly enhance the electric field between the nanocrystal and the sensing channel set up by the control gate bias and, hence, can achieve much higher efficiency in low-voltage P/E. On the other hand, the electric field originated from the stored charge will only be slightly different for metal and semiconductor nanocrystal cases. We presented the electrostatic models by both approximate analytical formulation and three-dimensional numerical simulation in a nanocrystal array. Operations of P/E and read disturbance were analyzed for the cases of homogeneous charge distribution, silicon, and metal nanocrystals. In the P/E condition of +5/-5 V, the metal nanocrystal memory offers around 1.6 times higher peak fields than Si counterparts and almost three times higher than that from the one-dimensional model for homogeneous charge distribution. The field enhancement factor suggests the design criteria of oxide thickness, nanocrystal size, and spacing. The advantage of asymmetric field enhancement of metal nanocrystals will be even more prominent when high-K gate dielectrics are employed.     

Using different work function nanocrystal materials to improve the retention characteristics of nonvolatile memory devices

Recently, nanocrystal nonvolatile memory (NVM) devices have attracted great research interest. Taking into account the effect of work function to account for the better retention characteristics for nanocrystals with larger work function, utilizing different work functions Au, W and Si as floating gates is proposed and comparatively studied in this paper. It was found that Au nanocrystals have better retention characteristic than W and Si. The good retention characteristic of the Au nanocrystal device is due to the larger work function and it is difficult for electrons captured by Au nanocrystal to escape from them. So, the retention characteristic of the device can be improved by using larger work function nanocrystal materials.     

Metal nanocrystal memories. I. Device design and fabrication

This paper describes the design principles and fabrication process of metal nanocrystal memories. The advantages of metal nanocrystals over their semiconductor counterparts include higher density of states, stronger coupling with the channel, better size scalability, and the design freedom of engineering the work functions to optimize device characteristics. One-dimensional (1-D) analyses are provided to illustrate the concept of work function engineering, both in direct-tunneling and F-N-tunneling regimes. A self-assembled nanocrystal formation process by rapid thermal annealing of ultrathin metal film deposited on top of gate oxide is developed and integrated with NMOSFET to fabricate such devices     

Electronic properties of Ge nanocrystals for non volatile memory applications

Charge and discharge phenomena of Germanium nanocrystals fabricated by low pressure chemical vapor deposition are investigated by means of Capacitance–Voltage and capacitance decay measurements. The study shows fast programming and erasing times as compared with conventional devices. It is shown that the charge saturation depends on the gate voltage stress in the low electric field regime. For high gate voltages, a saturation of the stored charge is obtained, indicating that the density of trapped carriers in Ge nanocrystals is limited and depends only on the dots size. Capacitance decay measurements exhibits a very long retention time for holes as compared with silicon nanocrystal memories. This is mainly due to the barrier height for holes at the nc-Ge/ ₂ interface. A model for simulation of the retention kinetics has been developed and allows to extract the band alignment of the nc-Ge/SiO₂/Si system. The simulation results are then used to determine the band gap energy of Ge nanocrystals. Finally, it is shown that Ge nanocrystals are very good candidates for P-type Metal Oxide Semiconductor nonvolatile memories.     

Impact of crystal size and tunnel dielectric on semiconductor nanocrystal memory performance

The write/erase characteristics of Germanium nanocrystal memory device are modeled using single-charge tunneling theory with quantum confinement and Coulomb blockade effects. A trap model is proposed to describe the retention characteristic of the nanocrystal memory. The impact of nanocrystal size, tunnel-oxide thickness, and high-k tunnel material is studied, and the suitability of the nanocrystal memory devices for nonvolatile memory and DRAM applications is discussed. Issues related to the scaling limit of the nanocrystal memory device are investigated.     

Memory characteristics of an MOS capacitor structure with double-layer semiconductor and metal heterogeneous nanocrystals

An MOS (metal oxide semiconductor) capacitor structure with double-layer heterogeneous nanocrystals consisting of semiconductor and metal embedded in a gate oxide for nonvolatile memory applications has been fabricated and characterized. By combining vacuum electron-beam co-evaporated Si nanocrystals and self-assembled Ni nanocrystals in a SiO_2 matrix, an MOS capacitor with double-layer heterogeneous nanocrystals can have larger charge storage capacity and improved retention characteristics compared to one with single-layer nanocrystals. The upper metal nanocrystals as an additional charge trap layer enable the direct tunneling mechanism to enhance the flat voltage shift and prolong the retention time.