Read-disturb degradation mechanism due to electron trapping in the tunnel oxide for low-voltage flash memories

Charge trap dynamics in a SiO2 layer on Si by scanning capacitance microscopy

“…So far, these problems have been studied by measuring time-dependent leakage currents to the gate, the drain ͑source͒, or the substrate in a MOSFET structure. [1][2][3][4][5] However, these macroscopic methods show the averaged properties over the area under the gate electrode without knowing the exact spatial distribution of the trapped charge. Since the advent of the scanning tunneling microscope ͑STM͒, 6 various types of scanning probe microscopes have been developed.…”

Charge-related phenomena and reliability of non-volatile memories

“…At high fields both trap creation by H release from anode or impact ionization are occurring with the result of generating positive charge and interface states at the anode and, by H diffusion, a negative one in the bulk and close to the cathode [18,22].…”

Impact of the array background pattern on cycling-induced threshold-voltage instabilities in nanoscale NAND Flash memories

“…Instabilities are mainly the result of charge detrapping from the tunnel oxide of the memory cells, giving rise to unwanted displacements of their V T during idle/bake periods [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Although the statistical nature of the detrapping process and, in turn, of the resulting V T shift (DV T ) has been clearly recognized [3,6,9,10], an average reduction of V T as time elapses is the typical feature of detrapping in Flash arrays, owing to a dominant neutralization of negative charge in the cell tunnel-oxide [3][4][5]7].…”