Physical Electronics of Multi-Dielectric Microstructures

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This research is concerned with the basic physical, electronic and material properties of multi- dielectric microstructures which use quantum mechanical tunneling of carriers into deep-level, storage traps to create a nonvolatile semiconductor memory device. The particular device under investigation is the polySilicon gate-blocking Oxide-silicon Nitride- tunnel Oxide-Silicon (SONOS) multi- dielectric microstructure. The traps are located in the silicon nitride and this research explores the physical mechanisms by which charge injection, transport and storage is accomplished in 'scale' device structures. The origin and control of these traps is an important objective in the program as well as the examination of electron and hole transport across interfacial boundaries with novel charge-separation techniques. In particular, we propose to investigate a new SONOS device structure which uses a polysilicon storage region for increased charge storage at low programming voltages. These SONOS structures show great promise for low voltage programming and the results of this research will impact such areas as high density, nonvolatile memories, application specific integrated circuits, wafer scale integration and neural networks. In particular, the low power, electrically reprogrammable SONOS analog conductance is an attractive 'modifiable' synapse for neural network implementation.