Electric-Field Enhancement of a Gate-All-Around Nanowire Thin-Film Transistor Memory

• Published in: IEEE electron device letters Vol. 31; no. 3; pp. 216 - 218
• Main Authors: HUANG, Po-Chun, CHEN, Lu-An, SHEU, Jeng-Tzong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.03.2010; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Active matrix liquid crystal displays; Active matrix technology; Applied sciences; Compound structure devices; Control systems; Corners; Design. Technologies. Operation analysis. Testing; Devices; Dielectric substrates; Electronics; Energy consumption; Exact sciences and technology; Field enhancement; gate injection; gate-all-around (GAA); Integrated circuits; Integrated circuits by function (including memories and processors); Liquid crystal displays; Nanocomposites; Nanomaterials; nanowire (NW); Nanowires; Nonuniform electric fields; Power system reliability; Semiconductor devices; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; SONOS; SONOS devices; Thin film transistors; thin-film transistor (TFT); Transistors; Voltage threshold; SONOS; High performance; thin-film transistor (TFT); nanowire (NW); Polycrystal; SONOS structure; GAA transistor; gate injection; Electric field; gate-all-around (GAA); Non volatile memory; Field enhancement; Thin film memory; Integrated circuit; Memory transistor; Thin film transistor; Nanowires; Planar device; Planar technology
• ISSN: 0741-3106; 1558-0563
• DOI: 10.1109/LED.2009.2038177

A high-performance gate-all-around (GAA) poly-Si nanowire (NW) SONOS-type memory thin-film transistor (TFT) is presented. The presence of the corners of the GAA structure resulted in the program speed and memory window of this device being superior to those of a planar poly-Si TFT device. When erasing, planar devices exhibit a threshold-voltage shift resulting from gate injection; the GAA device was immune to this behavior. The presence of a nonuniform electric field in the channel region during programming and erasing was confirmed through simulation. The device also exhibited superior endurance and data-retention behavior.