Hot Electron Source Side Injection Comprehension in 40nm eSTM™

Franck Melul (1) , Thibault Kempf (2) , Vincenzo Della Marca (1) , Marc Bocquet (1) , Madjid Akbal (2) , Frederique Trenteseaux (3) , Marc Mantelli (2) , Arnaud Regnier (2) , Stephan Niel (3) , Francesco Rosa (2)

1 IM2NP - Institut des Matériaux, de Microélectronique et des Nanosciences de Provence
2 ST-ROUSSET - STMicroelectronics [Rousset]
3 ST-CROLLES - STMicroelectronics [Crolles]

In this paper, we detail an experimental study of the hot electron Source Side Injection programming operation of the embedded Select in Trench Memory (eSTM™) cell. A complete set of electrical characterizations is carried out. A focus on the Select Gate bias to improve the programming window and the consumption is reported. Moreover, the impact of the Sense-to-Select distance, on the memory behavior is highlighted. These characteristics give us the keys to find the best tradeoff to program this cell. Finally, the optimized programming scheme is used to show the endurance up to 500k cycles, while the programming current is monitored. We report an energy consumption decrease during the cycling thanks to the Source Side Injection mechanism. This makes the eSTM™ cell suitable for low-power and scalable embedded applications.

Domaines: Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

Franck Melul, Thibault Kempf, Vincenzo Della Marca, Marc Bocquet, Madjid Akbal, et al.. Hot Electron Source Side Injection Comprehension in 40nm eSTM™. 2021 IEEE International Memory Workshop (IMW), May 2021, Dresden, France. pp.1-4, ⟨10.1109/IMW51353.2021.9439613⟩. ⟨hal-03596898⟩