The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 18, 2000
Filed:
Mar. 24, 1999
Min-hwa Chi, Hsinchu, TW;
Chih Ming Chen, Hsinchu, TW;
Worldwide Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, Hsinchu, TW;
Abstract
A new method for injecting electrons from a forward biased deep n-well to p-well junction underneath the channel area of a triple-well ETOX cell during substrate hot electron (SHE) programming. The ETOX cell has a control gate, a floating gate, a deep n-well formed in the substrate, a p-well formed in the n-well, a drain implant formed in the p-well, and a source implant formed in the p-well. The method comprises the steps of: forward biasing the deep n-well relative to the p-well; positively biasing the control gate by a voltage sufficient to invert the channel between the source implant and the drain implant; and positively biasing the source and drain. The SHE programming has at least 100 times higher efficiency than channel hot electron (CHE). The cell threshold voltage (V.sub.T) saturates to a value in a self-convergent manner. The SHE can also be used for tightening the Vt spread by a re-programming technique after erase.