EEPROM with split gate source side injection
First Claim
1. A memory structure comprising:
- a source region of a first conductivity type;
a drain region of said first conductivity type;
a first channel region of a second conductivity type opposite said first conductivity type, located adjacent said source region;
a second channel region of said second conductivity type, located between said drain region and said first channel region;
a floating gate located above said second channel region;
a first control gate located above said floating gate, serving as a steering element for a memory transistor;
a second control gate located above said first channel region, serving as a control gate of an access transistor;
a tunneling zone formed between said floating gate and said second control gate, and including one or more of edges, side wall, corners of the top edge, portions of the top, and portions of the bottom of said floating gate; and
a portion of said second channel region adjacent said drain region, said portion being doped to said second conductivity type to a dopant concentration greater than that of said second channel region.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Novel memory cells utilize source-side injection, allowing very small programming currents. If desired, to-be-programmed cells are programmed simultaneously while not requiring an unacceptably large programming current for any given programming operation. In one embodiment, memory arrays are organized in sectors with each sector being formed of a single column or a group of columns having their control gates connected in common. In one embodiment, a high speed shift register is used in place of a row decoder to serially shift in data for the word lines, with all data for each word line of a sector being contained in the shift register on completion of its serial loading. In one embodiment, speed is improved by utilizing a parallel loaded buffer register which receives parallel data from the high speed shift register and holds that data during the write operation, allowing the shift register to receive serial loaded data during the write operation for use in a subsequent write operation. In one embodiment, a verification is performed in parallel on all to-be-programmed cells in a column and the bit line current monitored. If all of the to-be-programmed cells have been properly programmed, the bit line current will be substantially zero. If bit line current is detected, another write operation is performed on all cells of the sector, and another verify operation is performed. This write/verify procedure is repeated until verification is successful, as detected or substantially zero, bit line current.
932 Citations
42 Claims
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1. A memory structure comprising:
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a source region of a first conductivity type; a drain region of said first conductivity type; a first channel region of a second conductivity type opposite said first conductivity type, located adjacent said source region; a second channel region of said second conductivity type, located between said drain region and said first channel region; a floating gate located above said second channel region; a first control gate located above said floating gate, serving as a steering element for a memory transistor; a second control gate located above said first channel region, serving as a control gate of an access transistor; a tunneling zone formed between said floating gate and said second control gate, and including one or more of edges, side wall, corners of the top edge, portions of the top, and portions of the bottom of said floating gate; and a portion of said second channel region adjacent said drain region, said portion being doped to said second conductivity type to a dopant concentration greater than that of said second channel region. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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2. A memory structure comprising:
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a source region of a first conductivity type; a drain region of said first conductivity type; a first channel region of a second conductivity type opposite said first conductivity type, located adjacent said source region; a second channel region of said second conductivity type, located between said drain region and said first channel region; a floating gate located above said second channel region; a first control gate formed by said drain and serving as a steering element for a memory transistor; a second control gate located above said first channel region, serving as a control gate of an access transistor; a tunneling zone formed between said floating gate and said second control gate, and including one or more of edges, side wall, corners of the top edge, portions of the top, and portions of the bottom, of said floating gate; and a doped region at the interface of said first and second channel regions, said doped region being doped to said second conductivity type and having a greater dopant concentration than that of said first and second channel regions.
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3. A memory structure comprising:
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source region of a first conductivity type; a drain region of said first conductivity type; a first channel region of a second conductivity type opposite said first conductivity type, located adjacent said source region; a second channel region of said second conductivity type, located between said drain region and said first channel region; a floating gate located above said second channel region and having a tunneling portion separated from said second channel region by a tunneling dielectric; a first control gate formed by said drain and serving as a steering element for a memory transistor; and a second control gate located above said first channel region, serving as a control gate of an access transistor, wherein said floating gate comprises a first layer of polycrystalline silicon, said first control gate comprises a buried diffusion layer, and said second control gate comprises a second layer of polycrystalline silicon.
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4. A memory structure comprising:
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a source region of a first conductivity type; a drain region of said first conductivity type; a first channel region of a second conductivity type opposite said first conductivity type, located adjacent said source region; a second channel region of said second conductivity type, located between said drain region and said first channel region; a floating gate located above said second channel region; a first control gate located above said floating gate, serving as a steering element for a memory transistor; a second control gate located above said first channel region, serving as a control gate of an access transistor; a tunneling zone formed between said floating gate and said second control gate, and including one or more of edges, side wall, corners of the top edge, portions of the top, and portions of the bottom of said floating gate; and a doped region at the interface of said first and second channel regions, said doped region being doped to said second conductivity type and having a greater dopan concentration than that of said first and second channel regions.
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5. A memory structure comprising:
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a source region of a first conductivity type; a drain region of said first conductivity type; a first channel region of a second conductivity type opposite said first conductivity type, located adjacent said source region; a second channel region of said second conductivity type, located between said drain region and said first channel region; a floating gate located above said second channel region and having a tunneling portion separated from said second channel region by a tunneling dielectric; a first control gate formed by said drain and serving as a steering element for a memory transistor; a second control gate located above said first channel region, serving as a control gate of an access transistor; and a portion of said second channel region adjacent said drain region, said portion being doped to said second conductivity type to a dopant concentration greater than that of said second channel.
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6. A memory structure comprising:
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a source region of a first conductivity type; a drain region of said first conductivity type; a first channel region of a second conductivity type opposite said first conductivity type, located adjacent said source region; a second channel region of said second conductivity type, located between said drain region and said first channel region; a floating gate located above said second channel region; a first control gate formed by said drain and serving as a steering element for a memory transistor; a second control gate located above said first channel region, serving as a control gate of an access transistor; and a tunneling zone formed between said floating gate and said second control gate, and including one or more of edges, side wall, corners of the top edge, portions of the top, and portions of the bottom, of said floating gate, wherein said floating gate comprises a first layer of polycrystalline silicon, said first control gate comprises a buried diffusion, and second control gate comprises a second layer of polycrystalline silicon.
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7. A memory structure comprising:
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a source region of a first conductivity type; a drain region of said first conductivity type; a first channel region of a second conductivity type opposite said first conductivity type, located adjacent said source region; a second channel region of said second conductivity type, located between said drain region and said first channel region; a floating gate located above said second channel region and having a tunneling portion separated from said second channel region by a tunneling dielectric; a first control gate formed by said drain and serving as a steering element for a memory transistor; a second control gate located above said first channel region, serving as a control gate of an access transistor; and a doped region at the interface of said first and second channel regions, said doped region being doped to said second conductivity type and having a greater dopant concentration than that of said first and second channel regions.
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8. A memory structure comprising:
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a source region of a first conductivity type; a drain region of said first conductivity type; a first channel region of a second conductivity type opposite said first conductivity type, located adjacent said source region; a second channel region of said second conductivity type, located between said drain region and said first channel region; a floating control gate located above said second channel region; a first control gate formed by said drain and serving as a steering element for a memory transistor; a second control gate located above said first channel region, serving as a control gate of an access transistor; a tunneling zone formed between said floating gate and said second control gate, and including one or more of edges, side wall, corners of the top edge, portions of the top, and portions of the bottom, of said floating gate; and a portion of said second channel region adjacent said drain region, said portion being doped to said second conductivity type to a dopant concentration greater than that of said second channel region.
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9. A memory structure comprising:
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a source region of a first conductivity type; a drain region of said first conductivity type; a first channel region of a second conductivity type opposite said first conductivity type, located adjacent said source region; a second channel region of said second conductivity type, located between said drain region and said first channel region; a floating gate comprising a first layer of polycrystalline silicon located above said second channel region; a first control gate comprising a second layer of polycrystalline silicon located above said floating gate, serving as a steering element for a memory transistor; a second control gate comprising a third layer of polycrystalline silicon located above said first channel region, serving as a control gate of an access transistor, said second control gate also overlying at least a portion of said first control gate; and a tunneling zone formed between said floating gate and said second control gate, and including one or more of edges, side wall, corners of the top edge, portions of the top, and portions of the bottom of said floating gate.
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10. A memory structure comprising:
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a buried source region of a first conductivity type; a buried drain region of said first conductivity type; a first channel region of a second conductivity type opposite said first conductivity type, located adjacent said source region; a second channel region of said second conductivity type, located between said drain region and said first channel region; a floating gate located above said second channel region; a first control gate located above said floating gate, serving as a steering element for a memory transistor; a second control gate located above said first channel region, serving as a control gate of an access transistor; a tunneling zone formed between said floating gate and said second control gate, and including one or more of edges, side wall, corners of the top edge, portions of the top, and portions of the bottom of said floating gate, and a relatively thick dielectric layer overlying said buried diffusions.
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16. A memory array having a plurality of memory cells, comprising:
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a plurality of diffused lines running in a first direction, serving as source and drain regions of said memory cells, each memory cell having a first channel region located adjacent said source region and a second channel region located between said drain region and said first channel region; a plurality of floating gates, each located above said second channel region of an associated one of said memory cells; a plurality of first control gate lines, running in said first direction, located above an associated set of floating gates and serving as steering elements associated with each floating gate; and a plurality of row lines, running in a second direction generally perpendicular to said first direction, forming a set of second control gates above said first channel regions of each memory cell, and serving as control gates of access transistors of associated memory cells, wherein said memory cells are formed at the intersections of one of said diffused lines and one of said row lines, and wherein each memory cell includes a tunnelling zone formed between said floating gate and said second control gate, and including one or more of edges, side wall, corners of the top edge, portions of the top, and portions of the bottom of said floating gate. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31)
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32. A memory array having a plurality of memory cells, comprising:
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a plurality of metal bit lines running in a first direction, each said bit line having contact means for electrically contacting diffused regions, said diffused regions serving as source regions of said memory cells; a plurality of diffused lines running in a second direction generally perpendicular to said first direction, serving as drain regions of said memory cells, each memory cell having a first channel region located adjacent an associated one of said source regions and a second channel region located between an associated one of said drain regions and said first channel region; a plurality of floating gates, each located above said second channel region of an associated one of said memory cells; a plurality of first control gate lines, running in said second direction, located above an associated set of floating gates and serving as steering elements associated with said floating gates; and a plurality of row lines, running in said second direction, forming a set of second control gates above said first channel regions of each memory cell, and serving as a control gate of an access transistor of each memory cell, wherein said memory cells are formed at the intersections of one of said diffused lines and one of said row lines, and wherein each memory cell includes a tunnelling zone formed between said floating gate and said second control gate, and including one or more of edges, side wall, corners of the top edge, portions of the top, and portions of the bottom of said floating gate. - View Dependent Claims (33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42)
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Specification