Impact of Heavy-Ion Strikes on Nanocrystal Non Volatile Memory Cell Arrays

In this work we focused our attention on heavy ion irradiation effects on nanocrystal memory cell arrays. All cells are fabricated by depositing Si nanocrystal on top of a SiO2 layer. Immediately after irradiation we observed neither charge loose following the ion hit, nor appreciable change of the electrical characteristics of the nanocrystal MOSFETs, such as transconductance and drain current decrease. In addition, despite the gate oxide leakage current may show a large increase after irradiation with high energy ions, the data retention time of the cells is not compromised, due to the discrete nature of the nanocrystal storage node