Dependence of the programming window of silicon-on-insulator nanocrystal memories on channel width.

In this letter, we investigate the observed dependence of the programming window of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) nanocrystal memories on the width of the channel. Indeed, experiments show that the obtained threshold voltage shift after programming strongly increases with decreasing channel width. We show that such behavior is due to the preferential injection of electrons, during the program operation, from regions close to the edges of the SOI channel, where the electric field is stronger. As a consequence, charge is mostly stored in the dots in the oxide region surrounding the edges, and therefore is more and more effective as the channel width is decreased. Our conjecture is verified through dedicated three-dimensional simulations and checked against other mechanisms proposed in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]