Embedded NVM Reliability
Guoqiao Tao, NXP Semiconductors
Semiconductor ICs manufactured with embedded non-volatile memory technologies have found their way in many high growth application areas: from banking-cards to e-passports, from hand-held personal media players to power-trains in the automotive market, from RFID-tags to digital right management systems. Technology-wise, there are many different device architectures and process technologies, all built upon core-library compatible CMOS platforms.
Although there are many possible implementations of eNVMs, this tutorial will mainly focus on a few variations based on the floating gates (double poly or single poly based eOTP/eFlash/eEEPROMs).
After an overview of the reliability requirements in different applications, we will move further to an overview of the various device concepts/implementations, their common reliability issues and different ways implementing engineering solutions. Some of the process aspects, including interaction between eNVM and CMOS will be discussed as well.
Guoqiao Tao
Guoqiao Tao is a Senior Principal and Domain leader of NVM reliability at NXP Semiconductors. He received B.Sc. in Semiconductor Physics in 1982 from Nanjing University, China. He received M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1990 and 1994, both from Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. He has worked on various subjects in the semiconductor field: discrete devices, bipolar ICs, surface acoustic wave devices, solar cells; and he has been working on non-volatile memory devices and reliability since 1995. He served the IRPS and chaired memory reliability sessions in 2003, 2004 and 2005. He is a senior member of the IEEE.