NONVOLATILE MEMORY DEVICE BASED ON MOBILE PROTONS IN SIO2 THIN-FILMS

The silicon/silicon-dioxide system provides the cornerstone of integra ted-circuit technology(1). Since the introduction of devices based on this system, the (largely deleterious) effects on device operation of mobile and trapped charges in the oxide layer have been studied in gre at detail, Contamination by alkali ions, for example, was a major conc ern in the early days of metal-oxide-semiconductor device fabrication( 2), But not all SiO2 impurities are undesirable: the addition of hydro gen, for example, has the beneficial property of rendering charge trap s inactive(1), Here we show that mobile H+ ions introduced by annealin g into the buried oxide layer of Si/SiO2/Si structures, rather than be ing detrimental, can form the basis of a non-volatile memory device, T hese mobile protons are confined to the oxide layer, and their space-c harge distribution can be controlled and rapidly rearranged at room te mperature by an applied electric held. Memory devices based on this ef fect are expected to be competitive with current state-of-the-art Si-b ased memories, with the additional advantage of simplicity-only a few standard processing steps are required.