Improvement of Hf-based metal/oxide/nitride/oxide/Si nonvolatile memory characteristics by Si surface atomically flattening

Abstract

Abstract The effect of Si surface atomically flattening (SAF) on the Hf-based metal/oxide/nitride/oxide/Si (MONOS) nonvolatile memory (NVM) characteristics was investigated. The memory window (MW) obtained in the C–Vcharacteristics for the Hf-based MONOS diode was increased from 4.5 to 4.8 V by the Si SAF. The charge centroid (Z eff) was found to be shifted from the center of the HfN1.1 charge trapping layer (CTL) to the interface at block layer and CTL for the Hf-based MONOS diode with the Si SAF. Furthermore, the MW of 3.2 V was realized for the Hf-based MONOS NVM with improvement of device characteristics by Si SAF.