Controlling the Carrier Injection Efficiency in 3D Nanocrystalline Silicon Floating Gate Memory by Novel Design of Control Layer

Autor: Hongsheng Hu, Zhongyuan Ma, Xinyue Yu, Tong Chen, Chengfeng Zhou, Wei Li, Kunji Chen, Jun Xu, Ling Xu
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Nanomaterials, Vol 13, Iss 6, p 962 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2079-4991
DOI: 10.3390/nano13060962
Popis: Three-dimensional NAND flash memory with high carrier injection efficiency has been of great interest to computing in memory for its stronger capability to deal with big data than that of conventional von Neumann architecture. Here, we first report the carrier injection efficiency of 3D NAND flash memory based on a nanocrystalline silicon floating gate, which can be controlled by a novel design of the control layer. The carrier injection efficiency in nanocrystalline Si can be monitored by the capacitance–voltage (C–V) hysteresis direction of an nc-Si floating-gate MOS structure. When the control layer thickness of the nanocrystalline silicon floating gate is 25 nm, the C–V hysteresis always maintains the counterclockwise direction under different step sizes of scanning bias. In contrast, the direction of the C–V hysteresis can be changed from counterclockwise to clockwise when the thickness of the control barrier is reduced to 22 nm. The clockwise direction of the C–V curve is due to the carrier injection from the top electrode into the defect state of the SiNx control layer. Our discovery illustrates that the thicker SiNx control layer can block the transfer of carriers from the top electrode to the SiNx, thereby improving the carrier injection efficiency from the Si substrate to the nc-Si layer. The relationship between the carrier injection and the C–V hysteresis direction is further revealed by using the energy band model, thus explaining the transition mechanism of the C–V hysteresis direction. Our report is conducive to optimizing the performance of 3D NAND flash memory based on an nc-Si floating gate, which will be better used in the field of in-memory computing.
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