Silicon Nanocrystal Memories

Quantum dots for memory applications

“…In this work we address the development of group IV and III‐N QDs embedded into very thin insulators with focus on their application to NVM devices. More specifically, we report on 2D arrays of Si and GaN QDs in SiO 2 formed by ultra‐low‐energy IBS (ULE‐IBS) and molecular beam deposition (MBD) , respectively. A review on the fabrication of Si and Ge QDs by ULE‐IBS in different insulators has recently been published by Bonafos et al .…”

Si and Ge nanocrystals for future memory devices

“…Basically, a NCM cell consists of a metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) with mono-disperse nanometerscale crystals embedded within the gate dielectric and associates the finite-size effects of NCs and the benefits (robustness and fault-tolerance) of a stored charge distribution. The last few years, significant advances have been made in NC fabrication (see, e.g., [2,3]) and prototype NCM-based products for low-power microcontroller applications have recently been demonstrated [4]. However, the NCM technologies developed to date still face the concern of producing high-density of uniformly distributed size-homogeneous NCs and hence, cannot avoid fluctuations in device performance and fail to exploit size-dependence effects [2,[5][6][7][8].…”

“…The last few years, significant advances have been made in NC fabrication (see, e.g., [2,3]) and prototype NCM-based products for low-power microcontroller applications have recently been demonstrated [4]. However, the NCM technologies developed to date still face the concern of producing high-density of uniformly distributed size-homogeneous NCs and hence, cannot avoid fluctuations in device performance and fail to exploit size-dependence effects [2,[5][6][7][8]. While more research is needed to overcome these limitations and other concerns related to the dielectric materials and device architecture [5][6][7], the NCM approach still competes with other charge storage (e.g.…”

GaN quantum dots as charge storage elements for memory devices

“…The last decade, a number of memory alternatives based on different concepts and/or technologies have been proposed as potential solutions to flash downscaling limitations. Among them, the nanocrystal or quantum dot (QD) nonvolatile memories (NC/QD-NVM) have retained considerable attention and have been intensively explored for CMOS and flexible electronic devices [1]. There, the QDs act as discrete charge storage nodes and due to quantum effects, the trapped charge is retained for a longer time than in conventional floating-gate flash memories.…”