A new low voltage fast SONOS memory with high-k dielectric

Abstract The comparison of simulated write/erase characteristics of silicon–oxide–nitride–oxide–silicon (SONOS) nonvolatile memory with different oxides SiO 2 , Al 2 O 3 and ZrO 2 as a top dielectric was made. We demonstrate, that an application of high- k dielectrics allows to decrease the write/erase programming voltage amplitude or programming time from 1 ms to 10 μs. The ZrO 2 suppresses parasitic electron injection from polysilicon gate. Also the design of SONOS memory based on high- k dielectrics is promising for terabit scale using hot carriers injection EEPROM and DRAM memory.

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