Effect of high temperature annealing on the performance of MANOS charge trapping memory

Abstract

We have investigated the effect of post deposition annealing (PDA) temperature of Al2O3 blocking layer on the performance of charge trapping memory capacitors. Two splits of PDA were performed in N2 ambient at 850°C/60 s and 1050°C/60 s, respectively. The 1050°C annealed capacitor could be programmed and erased normally by using Fowler-Nordheim (FN) injection. In contrast, the 850°C annealed device could not be erased, even though it could be programmed properly. By measuring the gate leakage current and the flatband voltage shift, we found the erase failure in the 850°C annealed device was due to a larger gate back-injection leakage current at V g<0. The trend of gate leakage current was further verified in two Al/Al2O3/SiO2/p-Si control capacitors with the same PDA splits. In addition, constant voltage stress measurements on control capacitors in the FN regime showed that the change of gate leakage current followed an empirical Curie-von Schweidler law at V g<0. The data pointed out the importance to further study the relation between PDA conditions and the defect generation properties in Al2O3 blocking layer.