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Materials and Device Reliability in SONOS Memories

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Charge-Trapping Non-Volatile Memories

Abstract

Silicon Nitride based charge trap devices have been studied for more than four decades for applications in non-volatile memories. SONOS memories are a widely used class of non-volatile memories today. Silicon-Oxide-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon (SONOS) stack as the non-volatile memory gate stack has been the focus since the 1990s. Several enhancements in SONOS layer materials have been invented to reduce the programming voltage and improve the reliability of the SONOS memory. This chapter will review the early years of SONOS and then highlight the various innovations that have enhanced SONOS memory performance, reliability and low cost of manufacture. Topics that will be covered include various improvements in the ONO stack such as Band gap engineering, High K-Metal Gate for SONOS, SONOS FinFETs and embedded SONOS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cypress Semiconductor, 3833 North First Street, San Jose, USA

    Krishnaswamy Ramkumar

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  1. Krishnaswamy Ramkumar
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Correspondence to Krishnaswamy Ramkumar .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microelectronics, Institute of Advanced Materials, Athens, Greece

    Panagiotis Dimitrakis

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Ramkumar, K. (2017). Materials and Device Reliability in SONOS Memories. In: Dimitrakis, P. (eds) Charge-Trapping Non-Volatile Memories. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48705-2_1

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