Enhanced charge storage characteristics by ZrO2 nanocrystallites precipitated from amorphous (ZrO2)0.8(SiO2)0.2 charge trapping layer

Charge trapping memory capacitors using (ZrO2)0.8(SiO2)0.2 film as charge trapping layer and amorphous Al2O3 as the tunneling layer and blocking layer were fabricated for nonvolatile semiconductor memory application. The ZrO2 nanocrystallites with a size of 3–5 nm precipitated from amorphous (ZrO2)0.8(SiO2)0.2 during rapid thermal annealing at 800 °C can serve as the storage nodes, with which a large hysteresis memory window of 7.5 V at a sweeping gate voltage of 8 V has been achieved. At 150 °C bake temperature, the memory capacitor exhibited an excellent endurance up to 105 write/erase cycles, after which a small charge loss of about 12% was achieved.

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