R&D: Investigation and Compact Modeling of Hot-Carrier Injection

IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices has published an article written by Dokyun Son, Jaeyeol Park, and Hyungcheol Shin, Inter-University Semiconductor Research Center, Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, South Korea.

Abstract: “A new compact model framework is presented to predict the read disturbance induced by hot-carrier injection (HCI) in 3D NAND flash memory. The physical phenomena that occur during read operation such as band-to-band tunneling (BTBT), impact ionization (II), and HCI, are analyzed through computer-aided design (TCAD) simulation, and the correlations between each other are considered in the compact model. In particular, it is found that a negative feedback process occurs to HCI during read operation due to the geometrical characteristics of 3D NAND flash. Owing to this phenomenon, time dynamic behavior of HCI is observed during the read operation. The proposed compact model framework includes all of these 3D NAND flash features. It would help to predict HCI-induced read disturbance without many read measurements.“