Low voltage hot-carrier programming of ultra-scaled SOI finflash memories

In this paper, we present a deep investigation of ultra-scaled Finflash memories, fabricated on Silicon on Insulator (SOI) substrate, with Silicon NanoCrystal (Si-NC) or nitride layers acting as storage nodes. Electrical characteristics of devices with channel length (L
_G
) as short as 30 nm, and fin width (W
_FIN
) as narrow as 10 nm are shown. Effective Channel Hot Electron (CHE) writing with sub-3.2 V drain biases (i.e. DeltaV
_TH
=3V at V
_G
/V
_D
/t
_stress
=9V/2.5V/100 mus), as well as Hot Hole Injection (HHI) erasing with sub-4.5V drain biases are demonstrated. Finally, fully three dimensional Monte Carlo simulations, coupled with an original semi-analytical approach, allow us to give a qualitative explanation of the obtained experimental data.