Nickel Nanocrystals Embedded in Metal–Alumina–Nitride–Oxide–Silicon Type Low-Temperature Polycrystalline-Silicon Thin-Film Transistor for Low-Voltage Nonvolatile Memory Application

Abstract

In this work, a nickel nanocrystal (Ni-NC) assisted metal–alumina–nitride–oxide–silicon (MANOS) thin-film transistor (TFT) nonvolatile memory (NVM) was fabricated by a standard low temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) TFT process. The size range and density of Ni-NCs were approximately 5–13 nm and 5 ×1011 cm-2, respectively. The programming/erasing (P/E) voltages are decreased down to -10 and +8 V, respectively, by the Fowler–Nordheim tunneling mechanism from gate injection. In this P/E voltage condition, a large memory window (∼4.2 V) was observed by current–voltage measurement. Then, the speed and voltages of P/E were measured and discussed completely. The data retention of the Ni-NC assisted MANOS-LTPS-TFT-NVM is extracted to be 1.62 V of memory window after 104 s.