Behavior Modeling for Charge Storage in Single-Poly Floating Gate Device.

Area of Science:

• Solid-state physics
• Electrical engineering
• Semiconductor device physics

Background:

• Single-poly floating gate devices are crucial for charge storage applications.
• These devices utilize standard CMOS processes for efficient, low-power programming.
• Understanding gate leakage current is vital for device performance and reliability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an accurate model for floating gate leakage currents.
• To incorporate the effects of fringing fields in the leakage model.
• To assist engineers in precise circuit design with charge storage devices.

Main Methods:

• Extraction of Fowler-Nordheim (FN) tunneling and Poole-Frenkel (PF) emission components from measured current.
• Development of a comprehensive leakage current model.
• Inclusion of fringing field effects arising from the 3D device structure.

Main Results:

• Successfully modeled both FN tunneling and PF emission leakage mechanisms.
• The model accurately accounts for fringing field effects in the 3D structure.
• The developed model provides a more precise representation of device behavior.

Conclusions:

• The accurate leakage current model enhances the design of floating gate charge storage devices.
• Incorporating fringing fields improves the predictive capability for device performance.
• This work supports engineers in optimizing circuit designs involving these memory elements.