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Programmable 3-Dimensional Memories Based on Current Induced Conductivity in Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon Nitride

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2011

J.M. Shannon ,
S.P. Lau  and
B.J. Sealy
J.M. Shannon
Affiliation:
School of Electronic Engineering, Information Technology and Mathematics, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 5XH, United Kingdom
S.P. Lau
Affiliation:
School of Electronic Engineering, Information Technology and Mathematics, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 5XH, United Kingdom
B.J. Sealy
Affiliation:
School of Electronic Engineering, Information Technology and Mathematics, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 5XH, United Kingdom
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Abstract

Changes of several orders of magnitude in the low field conductivity of hydrogenated amorphous silicon alloy metal-semiconductor-metal MSM devices can be obtained by current stressing. This feature is suitable for memory applications, since the device can be programmed from an unstressed state to a stressed state with a ratio greater than 104. The change in conductivity is attributed to the creation of a large concentration of silicon dangling bond states during current stressing which form a defect band with a low activation energy for current transport. In this paper, we consider the use of current induced conductivity in hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride (a-SiNx:H) multi-layer structures and show that, in principle, highly complex three dimensional circuits could be made. In particular, the potential of this approach is illustrated by using a simple MSMSM device with two silicon rich silicon nitride layers. An array with lxi0 elements has been fabricated and programmed to store 28 bits of binary information with three outputs per input.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 507: Symposium A – Amorphous & Microcrystalline Silicon Technology 1998 , 1998 , 339
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1998

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References

REFERENCES

1 Shannon, J.M., Lau, S.P., Annis, A.D. and Sealy, B.J., Solid State Electronics 42, 91 (1998).Google Scholar
2 Shannon, J.M. and Annis, A.D., Phil. Mag. Lett. 72, 323 (1995).Google Scholar
3 Shannon, J.M., Deane, S.C., McGarvey, B. and Sandoe, J.N., Appl. Phys. Lett. 65, 2978 (1994).Google Scholar