Lattice Semiconductor Corporation

Chih-Chuan Lin

Sunil D Mehta

Techniques are described to monitor charging of an integrated circuit during manufacturing processes. In one example, an integrated circuit includes first and second pads adapted to be charged by charge carriers during manufacture of the integrated circuit. The integrated circuit also includes a reference nonvolatile memory cell comprising a floating gate and a control gate, wherein the control gate is coupled to the first pad. The integrated circuit further includes a charging protection device coupled to the control gate of the reference memory cell and adapted to limit the gate voltage of the control gate induced by the charge carriers. In addition, the integrated circuit includes a charging monitor nonvolatile memory cell comprising a floating gate and a control gate, wherein the control gate is coupled to the second pad but not to a charging protection device adapted to limit the gate voltage of the control gate.

Process charging monitor for nonvolatile memory

An EEPROM device exhibiting high saturation current and low signal propagation delay and a process for fabricating the device that includes the formation of refractory metal silicide regions in the source and the drain regions and the gate electrode of an MOS transistor within an EEPROM memory cell. A floating-gate protect layer is formed over the floating-gate electrode and a relatively thick cap oxide layer is formed to overlie the floating-gate protect layer and the source and drain regions and gate electrode of the MOS transistor. A doped oxide layer is formed to overlie the cap oxide layer. The cap oxide layer is formed to a thickness sufficient to create strain in the channel region of the MOS transistor, while not having a thickness that could cause poor data retention in the EEPROM memory cell.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Chih-Chuan Lin