Aluminum-Doped Gadolinium Oxides as Blocking Layer for Improved Charge Retention in Charge-Trap-Type Nonvolatile Memory Devices

Aluminum-doped gadolinium oxides GdAlO
x
are proposed as a blocking oxide layer in charge-trap-type flash memory cell devices. Greatly improved operation speed and charge retention properties have been demonstrated, compared to conventional Al
₂
O
₃
blocking layer. The optimization of Al percentage in GdAlO
x
, as well as charge loss mechanism in the memory cell device, has also been systematically studied.