Abstract
With Si substrate, Ge-based nonvolatile memory devices with the charge trapping layer and tunnel dielectric respectively formed by a Ge-stabilized tetragonal ZrO 2 film and a thermal GeO 2 film are explored in this work. A 1.8-V memory window is achieved by program/erase (P/E) at 5 V for 1 ms which proves high-speed/low-voltage operation and this desirable characteristic is mainly due to the crystalline ZrO 2 trapping layer which provides a high permittivity of 36.8 with a large amount of trapping sites. A negligible degradation of memory window up to 10 5 P/E cycles can be accomplished by applying gate pulse of 5 V for 1 ms and it demonstrates that the thermal GeO 2 film is robust enough to offer the required reliability. Good retention characteristics with 70 charge after a 10 year operation at 85C also affirm the eligibility of GeO 2 as the tunnel dielectric. These results suggest that this novel device structure holds great potential for future high-performance memory. © 2011 The Electrochemical Society.