First-ever high-performance, low-power 32-bit microcontrollers with embedded nanocrystal flash and enhanced EEPROM memories

We present the first-ever commercially available microcontroller families built with innovative split-gate based NOR flash memory that uses silicon nanocrystals as the storage medium. The 32-bit mixed-signal low-power Kinetis microcontroller families have nanocrystal based flash memories (referred to as TFS for `Thin Film Storage') with a wide range of array sizes from 32KB to 1MB. In addition, the unique capability of TFS has enabled inclusion of fully configurable embedded EEPROM functionality called `FlexMemory', which also manages wear leveling for high endurance. The TFS memory has been optimized to deliver read access time of <;30ns, fast source-side injection programming (10-20μs), fast tunnel erase into the gate (1-20ms), robust high temperature data retention before and after cycling, endurance of at least 10K cycles for flash and effective endurance up to 10M cycles in the EEPROM mode. In addition, the microcontroller core, analog and flash modules have been developed to deliver performance, reliability, and low-power operations across a temperature range of -40C to 105C and full operation down to 1.7V from a single power supply.