This paper describes the latest development in the area of silicon nanocrystal memory.Since Tiwari introduced the device concept in 1996 [1], much progress has been made in the areas of nanocrystal deposition, stack engineering, process integration, cell operation, and array architecture. Instead of giving a broad review of the art of semiconductor memories made with quantum dots or nanoparticles, a narrower focused update of the Freescale implementation of the silicon nanocrystal memory as an embedded flash solution is highlighted here.

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Polysilicon films with high oxygen content (SIPOS) have been prepared by LPCVD. These films have a two-phase structure with silicon crystallites surrounded by amorphous oxide, as confirmed by TEM and HRTEM measurements. Increasing the ratio of nitrous oxide to silane, R, during growth allows us to vary the oxygen concentration. Contrary to expectation, we observe a region where conduction increases as R is increased from 1 to 10. This can be accounted for by deviations from monotonicity in the dependence of silicon volume fraction on R. We also observe some influence of the SIPOS/silicon interface on conduction.

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