Nickel Nanocrystals Embedded in Metal-Alumina-Nitride-Oxide-Silicon Type Low-Temperature Polycrystalline-Silicon Thin-Film Transistor for Low-Voltage Nonvolatile Memory Application

Abstract

In this work, a nickel nanocrystal (Ni-NC) assisted metal-alumina-nitride-oxide-silicon (MANOS) thin-film transistor (TFT) nonvolatile memory (NVM) was fabricated by a standard low temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) TFT process. The size range and density of Ni-NCs were approximately 5-13 nm and 5 x 10(11) cm(-2), respectively. The programming/erasing (P/E) voltages are decreased down to -10 and +8 V, respectively, by the Fowler-Nordheim tunneling mechanism from gate injection. In this P/E voltage condition, a large memory window (similar to 4.2 V) was observed by current-voltage measurement. Then, the speed and voltages of P/E were measured and discussed completely. The data retention of the Ni-NC assisted MANOS-LTPS-TFT-NVM is extracted to be 1.62 V of memory window after 10(4) s. (C) 2011 The Japan Society of Applied Physics