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Introduction to Flash memory

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DOI: 10.1109/JPROC.2003.811702 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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Introduction to Flash Memory
ROBERTO BEZ, EMILIO CAMERLENGHI, ALBERTO MODELLI, AND ANGELO VISCONTI

Invited Paper

The most relevant phenomenon of this past decade in the field to allow cell scaling below the 65-nm node is the tunnel oxide
of semiconductor memories has been the explosive growth of the thickness reduction, as tunnel thinning is limited by intrinsic and
Flash memory market, driven by cellular phones and other types extrinsic mechanisms.
of electronic portable equipment (palm top, mobile PC, mp3 audio
player, digital camera, and so on). Moreover, in the coming years, Keywords—Flash evolution, Flash memory, Flash technology,
portable systems will demand even more nonvolatile memories, ei- floating-gate MOSFET, multilevel, nonvolatile memory, NOR cell,
ther with high density and very high writing throughput for data scaling.
storage application or with fast random access for code execution
in place. The strong consolidated know-how (more than ten years of
experience), the flexibility, and the cost make the Flash memory a I. INTRODUCTION
largely utilized, well-consolidated, and mature technology for most
of the nonvolatile memory applications. Today, Flash sales repre- The semiconductor market, for the long term, has been
sent a considerable amount of the overall semiconductor market. continuously increasing, even if with some valleys and
Although in the past different types of Flash cells and architec- peaks, and this growing trend is expected to continue in the
tures have been proposed, today two of them can be considered as coming years (see Fig. 1). A large amount of this market,
industry standard: the common ground NOR Flash, that due to its
about 20%, is given by the semiconductor memories, which
versatility is addressing both the code and data storage segments,
and the NAND Flash, optimized for the data storage market. are divided into the following two branches, both based on
This paper will mainly focus on the development of the NOR Flash the complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)
memory technology, with the aim of describing both the basic func- technology (see Fig. 2).
tionality of the memory cell used so far and the main cell architec-
ture consolidated today. The NOR cell is basically a floating-gate – The volatile memories, like SRAM or DRAM, that
MOS transistor, programmed by channel hot electron and erased although very fast in writing and reading (SRAM)
by Fowler–Nordheim tunneling. The main reliability issues, such as or very dense (DRAM), lose the data contents when
charge retention and endurance, will be discussed, together with the the power supply is turned off.
understanding of the basic physical mechanisms responsible. Most – The nonvolatile memories, like EPROM,
of these considerations are also valid for the NAND cell, since it is
based on the same concept of floating-gate MOS transistor. EEPROM, or Flash, that are able to balance
Furthermore, an insight into the multilevel approach, where two the less-aggressive (with respect to SRAM and
bits are stored in the same cell, will be presented. In fact, the ex- DRAM) programming and reading performances
ploitation of the multilevel approach at each technology node allows with nonvolatility, i.e., with the capability to keep
the increase of the memory efficiency, almost doubling the density the data content even without power supply.
at the same chip size, enlarging the application range, and reducing
the cost per bit. Thanks to this characteristic, the nonvolatile memories offer
Finally, the NOR Flash cell scaling issues will be covered, the system a different opportunity and cover a wide range
pointing out the main challenges. The Flash cell scaling has of applications, from consumer and automotive to computer
been demonstrated to be really possible and to be able to follow
and communication (see Fig. 3).
the Moore’s law down to the 130-nm technology generations.
The technology development and the consolidated know-how is The different nonvolatile memory families can be qualita-
expected to sustain the scaling trend down to the 90- and 65-nm tively compared in terms of flexibility and cost (see Fig. 4).
technology nodes as forecasted by the International Technology Flexibility means the possibility to be programmed and
Roadmap of Semiconductors. One of the crucial issues to be solved erased many times on the system with minimum granularity
(whole chip, page, byte, bit); cost means process complexity
Manuscript received July 1, 2002; revised January 5, 2003. and in particular silicon occupancy, i.e., density or, in sim-
The authors are with the Central Research and Development Department, pler words, cell size. Considering the flexibility-cost plane,
Non-Volatile Memory Process Development, STMicroelectronics, 20041
Agrate Brianza, Italy (e-mail: [email protected]). it turns out that Flash offers the best compromise between
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JPROC.2003.811702 these two parameters, since they have the smallest cell size

0018-9219/03$17.00 © 2003 IEEE

PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 91, NO. 4, APRIL 2003 489

 Fig. 4. Nonvolatile memory (NVM) qualitative comparison in the
flexibility–cost plane. A common feature of NVMs is to retain the
Fig. 1. Semiconductor market: revenues versus year. The bottom data even without power supply.
wave refers to the semiconductor memory amount.

Based on these market needs, a well-known way to clas-

sify Flash products and the relative technologies is that of
defining two major application segments:
– code storage, where the program or the operating
system is stored and is executed by the micropro-
cessor or microcontroller;
– data (or mass) storage, where data files for image,
music, and voice are recorded and read sequentially.
Different type of Flash cells and architectures have been
proposed in the past (see Fig. 5). They can be divided in terms
of access type, parallel or serial, and in terms of the utilized
programming and erasing mechanism, Fowler–Nordheim
tunneling (FN), channel hot electron (CHE), hot-holes
Fig. 2. MOS memory tree.
(HH), and source-side hot electron (SSHE). Among all of
these architectures, today two can be considered as industry
standard: the common ground NOR Flash [1]–[3], that due
to its versatility is addressing both the code and data storage
segments, and the NAND Flash, optimized for the data
storage market [4], [5].
In the following, the basic concepts, the reliability issues,
the evolution, and scaling trends will be presented only for
the NOR Flash cell, but most of these considerations are also
valid for the NAND since both of them are based on the con-
cept of floating-gate MOS transistor.

II. NOR FLASH CELL

Fig. 3. Main nonvolatile memory applications. In 1971, Frohman-Bentchkowsky presented a floating gate
transistor in which hot electrons were injected and stored
(one transistor cell) with a very good flexibility (they can be [6], [7]. From this original work, the erasable programmable
electrically written on field more than 100 000 times, with read only memory (EPROM) cell, programmed by CHE and
byte programming and sectors erasing). erased by ultraviolet (UV) photoemission, has been devel-
The most relevant phenomenon of this past decade in the oped. The EPROM technology became the most important
field of semiconductor memories has been the explosive nonvolatile memory in the 1980s. In the same period, the
growth of the Flash memory market, driven by cellular Flash EEPROM was proposed, basically an EPROM cell,
phones and other types of electronic portable equipment with the possibility to be electrically erased [8]. The name
(palm top, mobile PC, mp3 audio player, digital camera, and Flash was given to represent the fact that the whole memory
so on). Moreover, in the coming years, portable systems will array could be erased in the same (fast) time.
demand even more nonvolatile memories, either with high The first Flash product was presented in 1988 [9]. In terms
density and very high writing throughput for data storage of applications, initially Flash products were mainly used
application or with fast random access for code execution as an “EPROM replacement,” offering the possibility to be
in place. erased on system, avoiding the cumbersome UV erase oper-

490 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 91, NO. 4, APRIL 2003

Fig. 5. The family tree of Flash memory cell architecture. The actual industry standard are: 1) The
NOR for code and data storage application and 2) NAND only for data storage.

Fig. 7. Schematic cross section of a Flash cell. The floating-gate

structure is common to all the nonvolatile memory cells based on
Fig. 6. Semiconductor memory market for the main memory, the floating-gate MOS transistor.
i.e., DRAM, Flash, and SRAM.

A. Basic Concept
ation. But the Flash market did not take off until this tech-
nology was proven to be reliable and manufacturable. In the A Flash cell is basically a floating-gate MOS transistor
late 1990s, the Flash technology exploded as the right non- (see Fig. 7), i.e., a transistor with a gate completely sur-
volatile memory for code and data storage, mainly for mobile rounded by dielectrics, the floating gate (FG), and electri-
applications. Starting from 2000, the Flash memory can be cally governed by a capacitively coupled control gate (CG).
considered a really mature technology: more than 800 mil- Being electrically isolated, the FG acts as the storing elec-
lion units of 16-Mb equivalent NOR Flash devices were sold trode for the cell device; charge injected in the FG is main-
in that year. tained there, allowing modulation of the “apparent” threshold
In Fig. 6, the Flash market is reported and compared with voltage (i.e., seen from the CG) of the cell transistor.
the DRAM and SRAM one [10]. It can be seen that the Flash Obviously the quality of the dielectrics guarantees the non-
market became and has stayed bigger than the SRAM one volatility, while the thickness allows the possibility to pro-
since 1999. Moreover, the Flash market is forecasted to be gram or erase the cell by electrical pulses. Usually the gate
above $20 billion in three or four years from now, reaching dielectric, i.e., the one between the transistor channel and the
the DRAM market amount, and only smoothly following the FG, is an oxide in the range of 9–10 nm and is called “tunnel
DRAM oscillating trend, driven by the personal computer oxide” since FN electron tunneling occurs through it. The
market. In fact, portable systems for communications and dielectric that separates the FG from the CG is formed by a
consumer markets, which are the drivers of the Flash market, triple layer of oxide–nitride–oxide (ONO). The ONO thick-
are forecasted to continuously grow in the coming years. ness is in the range of 15–20 nm of equivalent oxide thick-
In the following, we briefly describe the basics of the Flash ness. The ONO layer as interpoly dielectric has been intro-
cell functionality. duced in order to improve the tunnel oxide quality. In fact, the

BEZ et al.: INTRODUCTION TO FLASH MEMORY 491

Fig. 8. Schematic energy band diagram (lower part) as referred to a floating gate MOSFET
structure (upper part). The left side of the figure is related to a neutral cell, while the right side to a
negatively charged cell.

Fig. 9. (a) NOR Flash array equivalent circuit. (b) Flash memory cell cross section.

use of thermal oxide over polysilicon implies growth temper- contact and the sourceline. This picture can be better under-
ature higher than 1100 C, impacting the underneath tunnel stood considering the layout of a cell (see Fig. 10) and the
oxide. High-temperature postannealing is known to damage two schematic cross sections, along the direction (bitline)
the thin oxide quality. and the direction (wordline). The cell area is given by the
If the tunnel oxide and the ONO behave as ideal di- pitch times the pitch. The pitch is given by the active
electrics, then it is possible to schematically represent the area width and space, considering also that the FG must
energy band diagram of the FG MOS transistor as reported overlap the oxide field. The pitch is constituted by the cell
in Fig. 8. It can be seen that the FG acts as a potential well gate length, the contact-to-gate distance, half contact, and
for the charge. Once the charge is in the FG, the tunnel and half sourceline. It is evident, as reported in Fig. 9(b), that
ONO dielectrics form potential barriers. both contact and sourceline are shared between two adjacent
The neutral (or positively charged) state is associated with cells.
the logical state “1” and the negatively charged state, corre-
sponding to electrons stored in the FG, is associated with the B. Reading Operation
logical “0.” The data stored in a Flash cell can be determined mea-
The “NOR” Flash name is related to the way the cells are suring the threshold voltage of the FG MOS transistor. The
arranged in an array, through rows and columns in a NOR-like best and fastest way to do that is by reading the current driven
structure. Flash cells sharing the same gate constitute the by the cell at a fixed gate bias. In fact, as schematically re-
so-called wordline (WL), while those sharing the same drain ported in Fig. 11, in the current–voltage plane two cells,
electrode (one contact common to two cells) constitute the respectively, logic “1” and “0” exhibit the same transcon-
bitline (BL). In this array organization, the source electrode ductance curve but are shifted by a quantity—the threshold
is common to all of the cells [Fig. 9(a)]. voltage shift ( )—that is proportional to the stored elec-
A scanning electron microscope (SEM) cross section tron charge .
along a bitline of a Flash array is reported in Fig. 9(b), where Hence, once a proper charge amount and a corresponding
three cells can be observed, sharing two by two the drain is defined, it is possible to fix a reading voltage in such

492 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 91, NO. 4, APRIL 2003

 Fig. 12. Writing mechanism in floating-gate devices.

Fig. 10. The NOR Flash cell. (a) Basic layout. (b) Updated Flash
product (64-Mb, 1.8-V Dual bank). (c) and (d) are, respectively,
the schematic cross section along bitline (y pitch) and wordline
(x pitch).

Fig. 13. NOR Flash writing mechanism.

– The photoelectric effect, where electrons gain

enough energy to surmount the barrier thanks to
the interaction with a photon with energy larger
Fig. 11. Floating-gate MOSFET reading operation. than the barrier itself. For silicon–dioxide, this
corresponds to UV radiation. This mechanism is
the one originally used in EPROM’s products to
a way that the current of the “1” cell is very high (in the range
erase the entire device.
of tens of microamperes), while the current of the “0” cell is
– The Fowler–Nordheim electron tunneling mecha-
zero, in the microampere scale. In this way, it is possible to
nism is a quantum-mechanical tunnel induced by
define the logical state “1” from a microscopic point of view
an electric field. Applying a strong electric field
as no electron charge (or positive charge) stored in the FG and
(in the range of 8–10 MV/cm) across a thin oxide,
from a macroscopic point of view as large reading current.
it is possible to force a large electron tunneling
Vice versa, the logical state “0” is defined, respectively, by
current through it without destroying its dielectric
electron charge stored in the FG and zero reading current.
properties.
C. Writing Operation A NOR Flash memory cell is programmed by CHE injec-
tion in the FG at the drain side and it is erased by means of
Considering Fig. 8, the problem of writing an FG cell cor-
the FN electron tunneling through the tunnel oxide from the
responds to the physical problem of forcing an electron above
FG to the silicon surface (see Fig. 13).
or across an energy barrier. The problem can be solved ex-
ploiting different physical effects [11]. In Fig. 12, the three
main physical mechanisms used to write an FG memory cell III. RELIABILITY
are sketched. Many issues have to be addressed when, from the theoret-
– The CHE mechanism, where electrons gain enough ical model of a single cell, a Flash product has to be real-
energy to pass the oxide–silicon energy barrier, ized, integrating millions of cells in an array. Nonvolatility
thanks to the electric field in the transistor channel implies at least ten years of charge retention, and the data
between source and drain. In fact, the electron en- must be stored in a cell after many read/program/erase cy-
ergy distribution presents a tail in the high energy cles. The confidence in Flash memory reliability has grown
side that can be modulated by the longitudinal together with the understanding of the single memory cell
electric field. failure mechanisms.

BEZ et al.: INTRODUCTION TO FLASH MEMORY 493

 Fig. 15. Schematic of a Flash array, showing row and column
disturbs occurring when the cycled cell is programmed.
Fig. 14. Threshold voltage distribution of a 1-Mb Flash array
after UV erasure, after CHE programming, and after FN erasure.
Different models have been presented with the aim to
The high degree of testability [12] allows the detection explain the tail cells. For example, a distribution in the
at wafer level of latent defects which may cause single-cell polycrystalline structure of the FG, with a barrier height
failures related to programming disturbs, data retention, and variation at the grain boundaries, would give rise to a local
oxide defects [13], thus making Flash one of the most reliable enhancement of the tunnel barrier [15]. Another model
nonvolatile memories. explains the tail cells as due to randomly distributed positive
charges in the tunnel oxide [16]. This model is solidly based
on the well-known existence of donor-like bulk oxide traps
A. Threshold Voltage Distribution and on calculations that show the huge increase of the tunnel
When dealing with a large array of cells, e.g., from tens of current density caused by the presence of an elementary
thousands to one million, it is very important to understand positive charge closed to injecting electrode.
the type of dispersion given by the large set of cells. The best Independently from a consolidated model, it can be stated
way to do it is to compare the threshold voltage distribution that the exponential tail of the erased distribution is mostly
of the whole array, considering it after UV erasure—that can related to structural imperfections, i.e., intrinsic defects, and
be considered as the reference state—after CHE program- it can be minimized by process optimization (for example,
ming and after FN erasing. working on silicon surface preparation, tunnel oxidation, FG
Fig. 14 shows typical distributions of cell threshold volt- polysilicon optimization) but not eliminated. Flash products
ages in a large memory array. The UV-erased distribution must be designed taking into account the existence of such a
is pretty narrow and symmetrical. A more accurate analysis tail.
would reveal a Gaussian distribution due to random vari-
ations of critical dimensions, thickness, and doping which B. Program Disturb
contribute to cause a dispersion of threshold voltages, either
directly or through coupling ratios. The failure mechanisms referred to as “program disturbs”
The programmed distribution is wider than the UV-erased concern data corruption of written cells caused by the elec-
one, but it is still symmetrical. The enlargement occurs trical stress applied to these cells while programming other
because most of the parameters that cause dispersion cells in the memory array. Two types of program disturbs
of UV-erased cells also impact the threshold shift of pro- must be taken into account: row and column disturbs, also
grammed cells. referred as gate and drain stress, as schematically reported in
The distribution of threshold voltages after electrical erase Fig. 15, representing a portion of a cell array.
is much wider and heavily asymmetrical. A more detailed Row disturbs are due to gate stress applied to a cell while
analysis would show that the bulk of the distribution is again programming other cells on the same wordline. If a high
a Gaussian with a standard deviation larger than the one of voltage is applied to the selected row, all the other cells of
programmed cells. Cells in this part of the distribution are that row must withstand the gate stress without losing their
referred to as “normal” cells. But there is also an exponential data. Depending on the data stored in the cells, data can be
tail at low , composed of cells that erase faster than the lost either by a leakage in the gate oxide or by a leakage in
average, also called “tail” cells. the interpoly dielectric.
The dispersion of threshold voltages of normal cells is Column disturbs are due to drain stress applied to a cell
due to coupling ratio variations, and it has been accurately while programming other cells on the same bitline. Under
modeled [14]. Instead, the understanding of the tail cells, al- this condition, programmed cells can lose charge by FN tun-
though of key importance, is more difficult. In fact, as these neling from the FG to the drain (soft erasing). The program
cells erase faster than normal cells with the same applied disturb depends on the number of cells along bitline and
voltage, one should assume that they are somehow “defec- wordline and then depends strongly on the sector organiza-
tive.” However, they are just too numerous for being associ- tion. The most effective way to prevent disturb propagation is
ated with extrinsic defects. to use block select transistor in a divided bitline and wordline

494 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 91, NO. 4, APRIL 2003

organization to completely isolate each sector. Program dis-
turb really could be a critical issue in Flash memory, and cells
and circuits must be designed with safety margins versus the
stress sensitivity.

C. Data Retention
As in any nonvolatile memory technology, Flash memories
are specified to retain data for over ten years. This means the
loss of charge stored in the FG must be as minimal as pos-
sible. In updated Flash technology, due to the small cell size,
the capacitance is very small and at an operative programmed
threshold shift—about 2 V—corresponds a number of elec-
trons in the order of 10 to 10 . A loss of 20% in this number
(around 2–20 electrons lost per month) can lead to a wrong Fig. 16. Threshold voltage window closure as a function of
read of the cell and then to a data loss. program/erase cycles on a single cell.
Possible causes of charge loss are: 1) defects in the tunnel
oxide; 2) defects in the interpoly dielectric; 3) mobile ion
contamination; and 4) detrapping of charge from insulating
layers surrounding the FG.
The generation of defects in the tunnel oxide can be di-
vided into an extrinsic and an intrinsic one. The former is
due to defects in the device structure; the latter to the physical
mechanisms that are used to program and erase the cell. The
tunnel oxidation technology as well as the Flash cell architec-
ture is a key factor for mastering a reliable Flash technology.
The best interpoly dielectric considering both intrinsic
properties and process integration issues has been demon-
strated to be a triple layer composed of ONO. For several Fig. 17. Program and erase time as a function of the cycles
generations, all Flash technologies have used ONO as their number.
interpoly dielectric.
The problem of mobile ion contamination has been al-
ready solved on the EPROM technology, taking particular
care with the process control, but in particular using high
phosphorus content in intermediate dielectric as a gettering
element. [17], [18]. The process control and the interme-
diate dielectric technology have also been implemented in
the Flash process, obtaining the same good results.
Electrons can be trapped in the insulating layers sur-
rounding the floating gate during wafer processing, as a
result of the so-called plasma damage, or even during the UV
exposure normally used to bring the cell in a well-defined
state at the end of the process. The electrons can subse-
quently detrap with time, especially at high temperature. Fig. 18. Anomalous SILC modeling. The leakage is caused by
a cluster of positive charge generated in the oxide during erase
The charge variation results in a variation of the floating gate (left-hand side). The multitrap assisted tunneling is used to model
potential and thus in cell decrease, even if no leakage SILC: trap parameters are energy and position.
has actually occurred. This apparent charge loss disappears
if the process ends with a thermal treatment able to remove typical result of an endurance test on a single cell is shown in
the trapped charge. Fig. 16. As the experiment was performed applying constant
The retention capability of Flash memories has to be pulses, the variations of program and erase threshold voltage
checked by using accelerated tests that usually adopt levels are described as “program/erase threshold voltage
screening electric fields and hostile environments at high window closure” and give a measure of the tunnel oxide
temperature. aging. In real Flash devices, where intelligent algorithms are
used to prevent window closing, this effect corresponds
D. Programming/Erasing Endurance to a program and erase times increase (see Fig. 17).
Flash products are specified for 10 erase/program cycles. In particular, the reduction of the programmed threshold
Cycling is known to cause a fairly uniform wear-out of the with cycling is due to trap generation in the oxide and to
cell performance, mainly due to tunnel oxide degradation, interface state generation at the drain side of the channel,
which eventually limits the endurance characteristics [19]. A which are mechanisms specific to hot-electron degradation.

BEZ et al.: INTRODUCTION TO FLASH MEMORY 495

Fig. 19. Data retention tests at room temperature.

The evolution of the erase threshold voltage reflects the dy-

namics of net fixed charge in the tunnel oxide as a function
of the injected charge. The initial lowering of the erase is
due to a pile-up of positive charge which enhances tunneling
efficiency, while the long-term increase of the erase is
due to a generation of negative traps.
Cycling wear-out can be reduced by proper device en-
gineering and by optimization of the tunnel oxide process.
However, once process and product are qualified for a given
endurance specification, no major problems should come
from lot-to-lot variation.
Actually, endurance problems are mostly given by
single-cell failures, which present themselves like a reten-
tion problem after program/erase cycles. In fact, a high field
stress on thin oxide is known to increase the current density
at low electric field. The excess current component, which Fig. 20. DV as a function of the pulse number for three
causes a significant deviation from the current–voltage different channel lengths (the upper axis also shows the gate voltage
curves from the theoretical FN characteristics at low field, at each programming step).
is known as stress-induced leakage current (SILC). SILC is
clearly attributed to stress-induced oxide defects and, as far based on the ability to precisely control the amount of charge
as a conduction mechanism, it is attributed to a trap assisted stored into the floating gate in order to set the threshold
tunneling (see Fig. 18). The main parameters controlling voltage of a memory cell within any of a number of
SILC are the stress field, the amount of charge injected different voltage ranges, corresponding to different logical
during the stress, and the oxide thickness. For fixed stress levels. A cell operated with 2 different levels is capable
conditions, the leakage current increases strongly with of storing bits, the case being the conventional
decreasing oxide thickness [20]–[22]. single-bit cell.
The effect of cycling on data retention cannot be referred Three main issues must be afforded when going from con-
to in the typical cell, but must be studied considering a wide ventional to ML Flash [25]. A high programming accuracy is
array of cells, looking in particular to the tail distribution. required to obtain narrow distributions; reading operation
In Fig. 19, we report the results of retention test on a 1-Mb implies multiple, either serial or parallel, comparison with
array of cells with 8-nm tunnel oxide in order to enhance the suitable references to determine the cell status, requiring ac-
SILC defects in single cells. Retention tests have been per- curate and fast current sensing; window and read voltage
formed on arrays cycled 10 and 10 times [23]. As can be are larger while read margins are smaller than the single-bit
seen, the amount of cells that lose charge after three years are case, this for allocating all levels, requiring improved re-
much more in the case of longer endurance. Data retention liability and/or error-correction circuitry. These key points
after cycling is the issue that definitely limits the tunnel oxide will be discussed with reference to a common-ground NOR
thickness scaling. For very thin oxide, below 8–9 nm, the architecture.
number of leaky cells becomes so large that even error-cor-
rection techniques cannot fix the problem. A. Multilevel Flash Programming
CHE programming has been shown to give, under proper
IV. MULTILEVEL CONCEPT conditions, a linear relationship with unit slope between pro-
An attractive way to speed up the scaling of Flash memory gramming gate voltage and variation [26], indepen-
is offered by the multilevel (ML) concept [24]. The idea is dently of cell parameters (see Fig. 20). Very tight distri-

496 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 91, NO. 4, APRIL 2003

Fig. 21. Schematic of the control-gate voltage pulses.

Fig. 23. Threshold voltage distribution for 2 b/cell compared

with the standard 1 b/cell.

B. Reading Operation
In order to have a fast reading operation in the NOR cell, a
parallel sensing approach can be used [29]. The cell current,
obtained in reading conditions, is simultaneously compared
with three currents provided by suitable reference cells (see
Fig. 22). The comparison results are then converted to a bi-
nary code, whose content can be 11, 01, 10, or 00, due to the
Fig. 22. Parallel multilevel sensing architecture. multilevel nature. In Fig. 23, we report the threshold voltage
= =
MSB most significant bit; LSB less significant bit. distribution of a 2-b/cell memory. The 11, 10, and 01 cell dis-
tribution will give rise to a different current distribution, mea-
sured at fixed , while the 00 cell distribution does not
butions can be obtained by combining a program-and-verify
drain current as well as the programmed level of a standard
technique with a staircase ramp (see Fig. 21). In fact,
1-b/cell device. High read data rate, via page or burst mode,
this method should theoretically lead to a distribution
is normally supported by large internal read parallelism.
width for any state not larger than . Indeed, neglecting
A parallel sensing approach does not seem transferable
any error due to sense amplifier inaccuracy or voltage fluc-
to 3- or 4-b/cell generations because of the exponential in-
tuations, the last programming pulse applied to a cell will
crease, 2 1, in comparators number, respectively 7 or 15
cause its threshold voltage to be shifted above the program
per cell, that means exponential increase in sensing area and
verify decision level by an amount at most as large as .
current consumption. At this moment, a serial sensing ap-
It follows that by decreasing , it is possible to in-
proach, e.g., dichotomic, or a mixed serial-parallel is consid-
crease the programming accuracy. Obviously, this is paid in
ered the more suitable approach. Serial sensing is also useful
terms of a larger number of programming pulses together
for a 2-b/cell device when high-speed random access is not
with verify phases and, therefore, with a longer programming
necessary, e.g., in Flash Cards applications.
time. Hence, the best accuracy/time tradeoff must be chosen
for each case considering the application specification.
However, high programming throughput, equal to 1-b/cell C. Data Retention
devices, is normally achieved via a large internal program One of the main concerns about multilevel is the reduced
parallelism, which is possible because cells need a low pro- margin toward the charge loss, compared with the 1-b/cell
gramming current in ML staircase programming. To do that, approach. We can basically divide the problem of data reten-
ML devices operate with a program write buffer, whose typ- tion into two different issues.
ical length is 32–64 bytes, i.e., 128–256 cell data length. The first is related to the extrinsic charge loss, i.e., to a
Also, evolution to 3–4 b/cell will not have an impact on single bit that randomly can have different behaviors with
programming throughput. In fact, program pulses and verify respect to the average and that usually form a tail in a stan-
phases increase proportionally with the number of bits per dard distribution. It is well known that extrinsic charge loss
cell, thus keeping roughly constant the effective byte pro- strongly depends on tunnel oxide retention electric field and
gramming time. that this issue can become more critical if an enhanced cell
Despite a not-negligible programming current, another ad- threshold range has to be used to allocate the 2 levels [30].
vantage in using CHE programming for multilevel devices is This problem is usually solved with the introduction of the
to avoid the appearance of erratic bits that instead can be a error correction code (ECC), whose correction power must
potential failure mode affecting FN programming. In fact, er- be chosen as a function of the technology and of the specifi-
ratic bit behavior was observed in the FN erase of standard cation required to the memory products.
NOR memories [27] but, for its nature, it should be present in The second one is related to the intrinsic charge loss, i.e.,
every tunneling process [28]. to the behaviors of the Gaussian part of a cell distribution,

BEZ et al.: INTRODUCTION TO FLASH MEMORY 497

 Moreover, considering the multilevel approach for the
Flash cell with the capability to store two bits in the same
cell, as presented in Section IV, not only the scaling trend but
even the bit size itself is well aligned with the DRAM one.
Together with the Flash cell scaling, there has also been
an evolution of the Flash product specification and applica-
tion. Three main generations can be considered, well dif-
ferentiated as a technology node, process complexity, and
specification.
– First generation (1990–1997). The Flash applica-
tions were mainly “EPROM replacement.” The
products were characterized by a single array
Fig. 24. Shift in the threshold voltage distribution after 500 h (bulk), with memory density from 256 kb to 2 Mb.
bake at 250 C.
The program and erase algorithms were controlled
externally and all the product were dual voltage:
12 V for the write operations and 5 V for the power
supply. Cycling specification was limited to 10 .
– Second generation (1995–2000). The Flash
memory has become the right nonvolatile memory
technology for code storage application, where
software updates must be performed on the field.
In particular, portable systems, mainly cellular
phones, were strongly interested in this feature.
The cellular phone applications brought a lot of
innovations:
• The density was increased from 1 to 16 Mb
and sectors were introduced, instead of a
single (bulk) array, in order to allow different
Fig. 25. DRAM and Flash cell size reduction versus year. The use of the memory (some sectors can be used
scaling has been of about a factor 30 in ten years.
to store code while others to store data, with
different requirements in terms of cycling).
that must be characterized and defined as a function of the
Sector density was from 10 to 256 kb.
different level distributions. In order to study the data reten-
• A single voltage supply pin (5 or 3 V according
tion on multilevel memories, usually tests at high-tempera-
to the system specification) substituted the
ture bake on programmed cells are performed. A result of
two high-voltage and low-voltage pins previ-
data retention after bake (500 h, 250 C) is shown in Fig. 24,
ously used. The need to be programmed on
on one million cells [31].
field, without the possibility to have the high
The maximum shift, which occurs for the uppermost
voltage from an external pin, has developed the
level, is about 0.1 V. This means the spacing between levels
technology to internally generate the writing
is reduced by a very small amount. It is interesting to note
voltages using charge-pump techniques. A
that the three programmed levels are shifted by an amount
high-voltage supply is sometimes still used,
proportional to their respective programmed , so that the
but limited to the first programming operation
spacing between adjacent levels is reduced by only a fraction
in the system manufacturing line, to improve
of the observed maximum shift.
the throughput.
• Algorithms to perform all the operation
V. EVOLUTION AND SCALING TREND
on the array—reading programming and
The Flash memories were commercially introduced in the erasing—were embedded into the device in
early 1990s and since that time they have been able to follow order to avoid the need for an external micro-
the Moore law or, better, the scaling rules imposed by the controller.
market. Fig. 25 reports in a logarithmic scale the Flash cell • 10 writing cycles were introduced as a spec-
size as a function of time, from 1992 to 2002. It turns out ification. More than effectively needed by the
that the reduction of the cell size has been about a factor system, this high endurance is the result of a
30 in those ten years, closely following the scaling of the highly reliable technology.
DRAM, today still considered as the reference memory tech- – Third generation (from 1998 on). The portable
nology that sets the pace to the technology node evolution. system specifications push toward Flash memory
More specifically, the NOR Flash cell has scaled from 4.2 m products that look more and more like an applica-
for the 0,6- m technology node to the present cell size of tion-specific memory. Obviously, the density is one
0.16 m at the 0.13- m node. of the most important parameters, and devices well

498 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 91, NO. 4, APRIL 2003

Fig. 26. NOR Flash technology and architecture evolution.

Fig. 27. Triple well structure cross section: schematic (left side) and SEM (right side).

beyond 64 Mb will be realized entering the Flash CMOS technology have also been used for Flash. In Fig. 26,
in the gigabit era. The sectorization is becoming the different cell cross sections as a function of the different
more complex, and dual or multiple bank devices technology node are reported. For every generation, the
have already been presented. In these devices, dif- main innovative introduced steps are pointed out. It turns
ferent groups of sectors ( banks) can be differently out that the evolution of the different generations has been
managed: at the same time one sector belonging sustained by an increased process complexity, from the
to a bank can be read while another one, inside a one gate oxide and one metal process with standard local
different bank, can be programmed or erased. Also, oxidation of silicon isolation at the 0.8- m technology node,
following the general trend of reducing the power to the two gate oxides, three metals, and shallow trench iso-
supply, the device supply is scaling to 1.8 V (with lation at the 0.13- m node. In between is the introduction of
the consequent difficulties of internally generating tungsten plug, of self-aligned silicided junctions and gates,
high voltages starting from this low supply voltage and the wide use of chemical mechanical polishing steps.
value) and will go down to 1.2 V. Another issue, be- But one of the most crucial technologies for Flash evolution
coming more and more important, is the high data was the high-energy implantation development that has
throughput, in particular considering the density allowed the introduction of the triple well architecture (see
increase. Burst mode is often used in order to speed Fig. 27). With this process module, further development
up the reading operation and quickly download the of the single-voltage products has been possible, allowing
software content, reaching up to 50 MB/s. the easy management of the negative voltage required to
The introduction of the different generation as well as the erase the cell and, furthermore, the possibility to completely
reduction of the cell size has been made possible by the change the erasing scheme of the cell.
developments of Flash technology and process, and of cell In fact, as reported in Fig. 28, the cell programming and
architecture. erasing applied voltages have been changed as a function of
For what concerns the process architecture, all the main the different generation, always staying inside the CHE pro-
technology steps that have allowed the evolution of the gramming and the FN erasing. The first generation of cells

BEZ et al.: INTRODUCTION TO FLASH MEMORY 499

Fig. 28. NOR Flash cell evolution.

Fig. 29. NOR cell scaling. The basic layout has remained
unchanged through different generations. Fig. 30. NOR Flash cell scaling trends for cell area (right y axis)
and cell aspect ratio (left y axis). Both values are normalized to
the 130-nm technology node.
was erased, applying the high voltage to the source junction
and then extracting electrons from the FG-source overlap re-
gion (source erase scheme). This way was too expensive in The next technology step for the NOR Flash will be the
terms of parasitic current, as the working conditions were 90-nm technology node in 2004–2005. The cell size is ex-
very close to the junction breakdown. Moving to the second pected to stay in the range of 10–12 , translating to a cell
generation with the single-voltage devices, the voltage drop area of 0.1–0.08 m . As reported again in Fig. 29, the cell
between the source and the FG was divided, applying a neg- basic layout and structure has remained unchanged through
ative voltage to the control gate and lowering the source bias the different generations. The area scales through the scaling
to the external supply voltage (negative gate source erase of both the and pitch. Basically, this must be done con-
scheme). temporarily reducing the active device dimensions, effective
Finally, with the exploitation of the triple well also for the length ( ) and width ( ), and the passive elements,
array, the erasing potential is now divided between the neg- such as contact dimension, contact to gate distance, and so
ative CG and the positive bulk (the isolated p-well) of the on.
array, moving the tunneling region from the source to the For future generation technology nodes, i.e., the 65 nm in
whole cell channel (channel erase scheme). In this way, elec- 2007 and the 45 nm in 2010, as forecasted by ITRS, the Flash
trons are extracted from the FG all along the channel without cell reduction will face challenging issues. In fact, while the
any further parasitic current contribution from the source passive elements will follow the standard CMOS evolution,
junction, consequently reducing the erase current amount of benefiting from all the technology steps and process modules
about three orders of magnitude; the latter being a clear ben- proposed for the CMOS logic (like advanced lithography for
efit for battery saving in portable low-voltage applications. contact size, cupper for metallization in very tight pitch), the
The NOR Flash cell is forecasted to scale again following active elements will be limited in the scaling. In particular,
the International Technology Roadmap of Semiconductors the effective channel length will be limited by the possibility
(ITRS) [32]. The introduction of the 130-nm technology to further scale the active dielectric, i.e., the tunnel oxide and
node has occurred in 2002–2003 with a cell size of 0.16 m the interpoly ONO. As already presented in Section III, the
[33], following the 10- golden rule for the cell area tunnel oxide thickness scaling is limited by intrinsic issues
scaling, where is the technology node. The representation related to the Flash cell reliability, in particular the charge re-
of the memory cell size in terms of number of is a usual tention one, especially after many writing cycles. Although
way to compare different technology with the same metric; the direct tunneling, preventing the ten-year retention time,
for example, the DRAM cell size is today quoted to stay in occurs at 6–7 nm, SILC considerations push the tunnel thick-
the range of 6–8 . ness limit to no less than 8–9 nm. Moreover, the effective

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BEZ et al.: INTRODUCTION TO FLASH MEMORY 501

 Roberto Bez was born in Milan, Italy, in 1961. Alberto Modelli was born in Milan, Italy, in
He received the Ph.D. degree in physics from the 1953. He received the Ph.D. degree in physics
University of Milan in 1985. from the University of Milan in 1978.
In 1986, he joined the VLSI Process Devel- In 1978, he joined the Device Physics
opment Group of STMicroelectronics, Agrate Laboratory of the Research and Development
Brianza, Italy, where he worked on nonvolatile Department, STMicroelectronics, Agrate Bri-
memory process architectures. Until 1989, he anza, Italy, where he initially worked on the
was engaged in the electrical characterization development of silicon solar cells and later
and modeling of nonvolatile memory cells, con- on the physics and electrical characterization
tributing to the development of original device of the Si/SiO2 system. In 1994, he joined the
models. From 1989 to 1993 his work focused Non-Volatile Memory Process Development
on the development of Flash memory, studying the device physics related Group of STMicroelectronics, where he has been working on the reliability
to the programming/erasing mechanisms and participating to the process of flash memories. Since 1996, he has been in charge of multilevel flash
architecture definition. Then he was Project Leader of the Flash memory development. He is author or coauthor of over 40 publications, one book,
device process development for single power supply application from 1994 and five patents on the above-mentioned topics.
to 1997, and for multilevel products since 1998. Currently, he is Section
Manager in the Non-Volatile Memory Process Development Group of the
Central Research and Development Department of STMicroelectronics.
He has authored many papers, conference contributions, and patents on
topics related to nonvolatile memories. He was lecturer in Electron Device
Physics at the University of Milan and in Non-Volatile Memory Devices at
the University of Padova and Polytechnic of Milan. He is a member of the
Symposium on VLSI Technology Technical Program Committee.

Emilio Camerlenghi was born in Bergamo, Italy,

in 1959. He received the Ph.D. degree in physics
(curriculum in solid state physics) from the Uni-
versity of Milan, Milan, Italy, in 1984.
In 1985, he joined the Central Research and
Development Department, VLSI Process Devel-
opment Group of STMicroelectronics, Agrate
Brianza, Italy, working on nonvolatile memories
process architectures. Until 1989, he was
engaged in development of the 1.2-m EPROM
technology, with the main objective of studying Angelo Visconti was born in Como, Italy, in
the memory cell hot-electron programming physics and developing the 1966. He received the Ph.D. degree in physics,
memory cell device. From 1990 to 1992, he became responsible of the de- cum laude, from the University of Milan, Como,
velopment of the new generation 0.6-m EPROM process architecture. In in 1997. His thesis was on the feasibility of
1992, he joined the Flash development team, where he was Project Leader optical temporal solitons in quadratic nonlinear
of the 0.6-m Flash technology, designed to realize both double (5–12 V) materials.
and single (5 V only) power supply devices. In 1995, he was in charge of Beginning in 1987, he worked for ten years
leading the ST part of an advanced project (a codevelopment between STM as a hardware and software designer and project
and a U.S. company) whose target was to demonstrate the functionality of leader for industrial automation systems. In
an innovative Flash memory virtual-ground architectural concept. In the 1997, he joined the Central Research and De-
1997–1998 years, he was appointed to lead the development of the 0.25-m velopment Department of STMicroelectronics,
Flash process architecture for low-voltage power supply applications. Since Agrate Brianza, Italy, in the Non-Volatile Memory Process Development
1998, he has been Section Manager of High Performance Flash Memory Group. His first activities were about the study and characterization of
in the Non-Volatile Memory Process Development Group of the Central channel erase and programming currents in Flash cells. Afterward, he
Research and Development Department, STMicroelectronics; under his was involved in the development of a 0.18-m CMOS high-density Flash
responsibility, the 0.18-m, 0.15-m generations were developed and memory process. His interests are the characterization, reliability, and
qualified, while the 0.13-m technology is at present in the qualification multilevel applications of Flash cells. He is author or coauthor of several
phase. He has authored many conference papers and patents on nonvolatile publications and patents in the nonvolatile memory field and nonlinear
memory related topics. He is currently a member of the IEDM conference optical field. He is currently a Lecturer of Non-Volatile Memory Devices at
subcommittee on “Integrated Circuits and Manufacturing.” the University of Padova, Padova, Italy.

502 PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE, VOL. 91, NO. 4, APRIL 2003

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