The Effect of Thermal Treatment Induced Performance Improvement for Charge Trapping Memory with Al₂O₃/(HfO₂)_0.9(Al₂O₃)_0.1/Al₂O₃ Multilayer Structure

Abstract

Charge trapping flash memory devices with the structure of [TiN/W]/Al2O3/(HfO2)0.9(Al2O3)0.1/Al2O3/Si were fabricated, and their memory properties were characterized. High-κ (HfO2)0.9(Al2O3)0.1 composite (named as HfAlO in short) was prepared as the charge trapping layer, and the effect of post deposition annealing (PDA) conditions on its charge trapping characteristics was also investigated. The sample treated by high PDA temperature (1000°C) exhibits larger memory window, faster program/erase (P/E) speed, lower P/E voltage, better data retention and endurance performance, which should be ascribed to the intensive mixing of HfO2 and Al2O3 in the charge trapping layer. Therefore, the proposed memory devices show great potential in future nanoscale memory applications.