Silicon nanowire nonvolatile-memory with varying HfO2 charge trapping layer thickness

The authors have fabricated silicon nanowire (SiNW) based Al
₂
O
₃
/HfO
₂
/SiO
₂
nonvolatile-memory (NVM) cells with varying HfO
₂
trapping layer thickness have been fabricated by using self-aligning approach. The cells exhibit excellent characteristics such as fast programming/erasing (P/E) speeds, good endurance and excellent retention. The P/E speed is not sensitive to the HfO
₂
layer thickness. The magnitude of the achievable memory window on the other hand is larger for the cells with thicker HfO
₂
layers. These results are all in good agreement with the TCAD simulation analysis.