Data retention is one of the main issues affecting nonvolatile memory relia
bility due to the critical single-cell internal dimension scaling down, In
this paper an extensive investigation of floating-gate memory charge retent
ion is presented. We argue that the retention time, namely log(t(R)). varie
s linearly with temperature T rather than with 1/T as commonly assumed, yie
lding a drastic reduction in the extrapolated time-to-failure. The experime
ntal evidence of the new "T Model" is proved by means of several experiment
al results. The physical consistency of the "T Model" is shown to reside in
the temperature exponential behavior of the Fowler-Nordheim current. Indee
d, a good physical modeling of both experimental current-temperature (J-T)
and memory retention characteristics is achieved. Finally, it is shown that
this new "T Model" reconciles seemingly controversial activation energy da
ta from the literature.