Stmicroelectronics S.r.l.

Fabrizio Torricelli

Luigi Colalongo

Anna Richelli

Zsolt Miklos Kovàcs-Vajna

Luca Milani

Marco Pasotti

Davide Lena

Zsolt Miklos Kovacs-Vajna

Giancarlo Pisoni

A non-volatile memory includes cells arranged in rows and columns. Each memory cell includes an access portion and a control portion. The access and control portions share an electrically floating layer of conductive material defining a first capacitive coupling with the access portion and a second capacitive coupling with the control portion. The first capacitive coupling defines a first capacity lower than a second capacity defined by the second capacitive coupling. The control portion is configured so that an electric current extracts charge carriers from the electrically floating layer through Fowler-Nordheim tunneling to store a first logic value in the memory cell. The access portion is configured so that an electric current injects charge carriers in the electrically floating layer by injection of band-to-band tunneling-induced hot electrons to store a second logic value, respectively, in the memory cell.

Embedded non-volatile memory with single polysilicon layer memory cells erasable through band to band tunneling induced hot electron and programmable through Fowler-Nordheim tunneling

A non-volatile memory includes memory cells arranged in rows and columns. Each memory cell includes a program/read portion and an erase portion that share an electrically floating layer of conductive material defining a first capacitive coupling with the program/read portion and a second capacitive coupling with the erase portion. The first capacitive coupling defines a first capacitance greater than a second capacitance defined by the second capacitive coupling. The erase portion is configured so that an electric current extracts charge carriers from the electrically floating layer to store a first logic value in the memory cell. The program/read portion is further configured so that an electric current injects charge carriers in the electrically floating layer to store a second logic value in the memory cell.

Embedded non-volatile memory with single polysilicon layer memory cells programmable through channel hot electrons and erasable through fowler-nordheim tunneling

A non-volatile memory includes a plurality of memory cells arranged in a plurality of rows and columns. Each memory cell includes a read portion and a control portion. The read portion and the control portion share an electrically floating layer of conductive material defining a first capacitive coupling with the read portion and a second capacitive coupling with the control portion. The first capacitive coupling defines a first capacity greater than a second capacity defined by the second capacitive coupling. The control portion is configured so that an electric current injects or extracts charge carriers into or from the electrically floating layer to store of a first logic value or a second logic value, respectively, in the memory cell.

Embedded non-volatile memory with single polysilicon layer memory cells programmable through band-to-band tunneling-induced hot electron and erasable through fowler-nordheim tunneling

An embodiment of a nonvolatile-memory device includes: a body accommodating at least a first semiconductor well and a second semiconductor well; an insulating structure; and at least one nonvolatile memory cell. The cell includes: at least one first control region in the first well; conduction regions in the second well; and a floating gate region, which extends over portions of the first well and of the second well, is capacitively coupled to the first control region and forms a floating-gate memory transistor with the conduction regions. The insulating structure includes: first insulating regions, which separate the floating gate region from the first control region and from the second well outside the conduction regions and have a first thickness; and second insulating regions, which separate the floating gate region from the first well outside the first control region and have a second thickness greater than the first thickness.

Non-volatile memory device with single-polysilicon-layer memory cells

An embodiment of non-volatile memory device integrated in a chip of semiconductor material is proposed. The memory includes at least one sector of a plurality of memory cells; each sector includes a storage region of a first type of conductivity and a further storage region of a second type of conductivity. Each memory cell includes a first region and a second region of the second type of conductivity, which are formed in the storage region for defining a storage transistor of floating gate MOS type of the first type of conductivity; the memory cell likewise includes a further first region and a further second region of the first type of conductivity, which are formed in the further storage region for defining a further storage transistor of floating gate MOS type of the second type of conductivity. The memory cell also includes a common floating gate of the storage transistor and the further storage transistor. The memory device further includes programming means for programming each memory cell individually by programming the corresponding floating gate through the corresponding storage transistor, and erasing means for erasing each memory cell individually by erasing the corresponding floating gate through the corresponding further storage transistor.

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Brescia, Italy

Fabrizio Torricelli