Author:

Keywords:

Science & Technology, Technology, Physical Sciences, Engineering, Electrical & Electronic, Nanoscience & Nanotechnology, Optics, Physics, Applied, Engineering, Science & Technology - Other Topics, Physics, TANOS, High temperature PDA, Intermixing, 0204 Condensed Matter Physics, 0299 Other Physical Sciences, 0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Applied Physics, 4009 Electronics, sensors and digital hardware, 4016 Materials engineering

Abstract:

We investigate the effect of high temperature Post-Deposition Annealing of Al2O3 on the tunnel oxide of TANOS-like non-volatile memories. We found that, when temperature steps above 850 °C are applied after the stack deposition, a transition layer is forming by the intermixing of the Si3N4 with the upper part of the underneath SiO 2. We found that this transition layer has worse dielectric properties as compared to SiO2, altering in a not-negligible way the performance of TANOS memories, and in particular severely penalizing retention. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.