Formation of High Reliability Hydrogen-free MONOS Cells Using Deuterated Ammonia

For high reliability non-volatile memory cell dielectrics, hydrogen-free deuterated charge-trap SiN and tunnel SiON films are demonstrated. By using deuterated ammonia instead of ammonia as nitridation species in ALD cycles, an ultra-high deuterium/hydrogen ratio has been successfully obtained in both films, and these films showed good endurance for program / erase stress and data retention properties in MONOS capacitors.