Akihiro Nitayama

Bit Cost Scalable Technology with Punch and Plug Process for Ultra High Density Flash Memory

We propose Bit-Cost Scalable (BiCS) technology which realizes a multi-stacked memory array with a few constant critical lithography steps regardless of number of stacked layer to keep a continuous reduction of bit cost. In this technology, whole stack of electrode plate is punched through and plugged by another electrode material. SONOS type flash technology is successfully applied to achieve BiCS flash memory. Its cell array concept, fabrication process and characteristics of key features are presented.

Impact of surrounding gate transistor (SGT) for ultra-high-density LSI's

A transistor with compact structures for future MOS devices is discussed. This transistor, whose gate electrode surrounds the pillar silicon island, reduces the occupied area for all kinds of circuits. By using this transistor, the occupied area of the CMOS inverter can be shrunk to 50% of that using planar transistors. Other advantages, such as steep cutoff characteristics, very small substrate bias effects, and high reliability, are discussed. Its structure, which allows for the enlargement of gate-controllability to the channel and electric field relaxation at the drain edge, is described. The advantages of this SGT for large-scale integration (LSI) devices is discussed. >

High performance CMOS surrounding gate transistor (SGT) for ultra high density LSIs

A novel transistor with compact structure has been developed for MOS devices. This transistor, whose gate electrode surrounds the pillar silicon island, reduces the occupied area for all kinds of circuits. For example, the occupied area of a CMOS inverter can be shrunk to 50% of that using planar transistors. The other advantages are steep cutoff characteristics, very small substrate bias effects, and high reliability. These features are due to the unique structure, which results in greater gate controllability and in electric field relaxation at the drain edge.<<ETX>>

A surrounding gate transistor (SGT) cell for 64/256 Mbit DRAMs

A novel three-dimensional memory cell called the surrounding gate transistor (SGT) cell has been developed for 64/256-Mb DRAMs (dynamic RAMs). In the SGT cell structure, a transfer gate and a capacitor electrode surround a pillar silicon island. Contact of the bit line is made on top of the silicon pillar. All devices for a memory cell are located in one silicon pillar. Each silicon pillar is isolated by matrixlike trenches. Therefore, there is no intercell leakage current even in small cell-to-cell spacing. The SGT cell can achieve an extremely small cell size of 1.2 mu m/sup 2/ and a large capacitance of 30 fF using a relaxed design rule of 0.5 mu m. The cell has been fabricated and its functionality confirmed.<<ETX>>

Autonomous refresh of floating body cell (FBC)

Physics of autonomous refresh of FBC is presented. Current input to the floating body by impact ionization and output by charge pumping can balance to make FBC refresh by itself without sense amplifier operation. Thanks to this feature, multiple cells on a BL can be refreshed simultaneously, leading to a drastic reduction of BL charging current compared to the conventional refresh. 600 muA refresh current for 1 G-bit memory is achieved in 32 nm technology node with 4 ms retention time. If gate direct tunneling current is used as output, FBC can realize static RAM without periodical refresh when retaining data.

A novel circuit technology with surrounding gate transistors (SGT's) for ultra high density DRAM's

This paper describes a novel circuit technology with Surrounding Gate Transistors (SGTs) For ultra high density DRAMs. In order to reduce the chip size drastically, an SGT is employed to all the transistors within a chip. SGTs connected in series and a common source SGT have been newly developed for the core circuit, such as a sense amplifier designed by a tight design rule. Furthermore, to reduce the inherent cell array noise caused by a relaxed open bit line (BL) architecture, a noise killer circuit placed in the word line (WL) shunt region and a twisted BL architecture within the sense amplifier region combined with a novel separation sensing scheme have been newly introduced. Using the novel circuit technology, a 32.9% smaller chip size can be successfully achieved for a 64-Mb DRAM and 34.4% for a 1-Gb DRAM compared with a DRAM composed of the planar transistor without sacrificing the access time, power dissipation, and V/sub cc/ margin. Furthermore,the effectiveness of this technology is verified by using the circuit simulation of the internal main nodes such as WL and BL. >

Multi-pillar surrounding gate transistor (M-SGT) for compact and high-speed circuits

The M-SGT has a three-dimensional structure, which consists of the source, gate, and drain arranged vertically. The gate electrode surrounds the crowded multipillar silicon islands. Because all the sidewalls of the pillars are used effectively as the transistor channel, the M-SGT has a high-shrinkage feature. The area occupied by the M-SGT can be shrunk to less than 30% of that occupied by the planar transistor. The small occupied area and the mesh-structured gate electrode lead to the small junction capacitance and the small gate electrode RC delay, resulting in high-speed operation. The fabrication of the M-SGT CMOS inverter chain is discussed. The propagation delay reduces to 40%, compared with the planar transistor inverter chain. >

Floating Body RAM Technology and its Scalability to 32nm Node and Beyond

Technologies and improved performance of the floating body RAM are demonstrated. Reducing SOI thickness to 43nm, a 16Mb chip yield of 68% has been obtained. Device simulation proves that the floating body cell is scalable to the 32nm node keeping signal margin (threshold voltage difference) and data retention time constant

New phase shifting mask with self-aligned phase shifters for a quarter micron photolithography

In order to markedly improve the resolution of photolithography without improving the resolution of exposure systems, the authors propose a simple and effective phase shifting mask technology. The mask has self-aligned phase shifters which do not require assistant patterns and/or complicated design of the phase shifter patterns, which are essential to the conventional phase shifting mask. The mask with a phase shifter size of 0.5 mu m reduces the width of photointensity to 60% of that without phase shifters, while keeping high contrasts. The authors have fabricated the phase shifting mask and obtained 0.2- mu m line resist patterns with a high-contrast resist profile by a KrF excimer laser stepper with resolution capability of 0.4 mu m. The proposed phase shifting mask method is extremely attractive for a future ULSI lithography tool in 256-Mb DRAM (dynamic RAM) and beyond.<<ETX>>

Fully-depleted FBC (floating body cell) with enlarged signal window and excellent logic process compatibility

Fully-depleted (FD) floating body cell on 55nm SOI featuring excellent logic process compatibility has been successfully developed. For the first time FD operation is reported through significant signal enlargement by negative substrate bias. Using standard salicide process and FD operation, high-density embedded memory on SOI is achievable.