Toru Miwa

A 120mm 2 16Gb 4-MLC NAND Flash Memory with 43nm CMOS Technology

NAND flash memory use in digital still cameras and cellular phones is driving demand for larger-capacity storage. Moreover, NAND flash has the potential to replace HDDs. To achieve larger capacity while maintaining low cost per bit, technical improvements in feature size and area reduction are essential. To meet the stringent requirements, we develop a 16 Gb 4-level NAND flash memory in 43 nm CMOS technology. In 43 nm generation, gate-induced drain leakage (GIDL) influences the electrical field on both sides of NAND strings. GIDL causes severe program disturb problems to NAND flash memories. To avoid GIDL, two dummy wordlines (WL) on both sides of NAND strings are added. This is effective because the dummy gate voltages, are selected independent of the program inhibit voltage.

A 151mm 2 64Gb MLC NAND flash memory in 24nm CMOS technology

NAND flash memories are now indispensable for our modern lives. The application range of the storage memory devices began with digital still cameras and has been extended to USB memories, memory cards, MP3 players, cell phones including smart phones, netbooks, and so on. This is because higher storage capacity and lower cost are realized through means of technology scaling every year. Emerging markets, such as solid-state drives (SSDs) and data-storage servers, require lower bit cost, higher program and read throughputs, and lower power consumption