Non-Volatile Memory YEAR-IN-REVIEW



	Non-Volatile Memory YEAR-IN-REVIEW

	Daniele Ielmini, Politecnico di Milano

	The Memory Reliability Year-in Review will provide a detailed analysis and synthesis of the most relevant studies on memory reliability during the year 2006. The past year has seen a flourishing of investigations and reports on 'new' reliability issues for non volatile memories, which challenge the scaling of NAND and NOR toward next technology nodes. The Review will focus on non volatile memory reliability, including both 'conventional' memories (Flash NOR and NAND) and the 'evolutive' technologies, such as nanocrystal memories, SONOS, TANOS and NROM. A survey of papers published in most important international journals and presentations given at the most important international conferences in the field of memory reliability will be given. Flash reliability will be reviewed with emphasis on new reliability issues which deeply affects nanometer-scaled and multilevel Flash devices, e.g. the low-temperature charge loss due to SILC, charge detrapping effects in the dielectric layers and threshold voltage random telegraph noise (RTN) due to single trapping/detrapping events. The review will cover both experimental activities aimed at elucidating the physics of reliability issues, and new physics-based models for understanding and predicting the statistics of reliability and the scaling behavior. The progress with respect to previous models in the literature will be emphasized, pointing out the most challenging open issues and unsolved problems.



Daniele Ielmini Daniele Ielmini received the Laurea (cum laude) (1995) and Ph.D. (1999) in nuclear engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy. He joined the Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano, in 1999, working on oxide reliability characterization and modeling. In 2002 he became Assistant Professor at the Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy. He has been working on reliability of thin dielectrics for CMOS technology, modeling of leakage currents in the silicon dioxide, reliability of Flash EEPROM and modelling and characterization of nanocrystal and nitride-trap memories. His most recent research interests include the physical modelling of chalcogenide materials for non volatile memories and modelling and characterization of phase change memories.