A novel NAND-type PHINES nitride trapping storage flash memory cell with physically 2-bits-per-cell storage, and a high programming throughput for mass storage applications

A novel NAND-type PHINES nitride trapping storage flash memory cell is proposed for the first time. PHINES memory cells use a SONOS cell structure, and are arranged in a modified NAND array. FN electron injection and band-to-band (BTB) hot-hole (HH) injection are utilized as the erase and the program operations, respectively. Read is performed by a novel BTB current sensing scheme. Physically 2-bits-per-cell storage, low power operation, and a high programming throughput are demonstrated.