Formation of germanium nanocrystals embedded in silicon-oxygen-nitride layer

The formation of germanium nanocrystals embedded in silicon-oxygen nitride with distributed charge storage elements is proposed in this work. A large memory window is observed due to isolated Ge nanocrystals in the SiON gate stack layer. The Ge nanocrystals were nucleated after high temperature oxidized SiGeN layer. The nonvolatile memory with the Ge nanocrystals embedded in SiON stack layer exhibits 4V threshold voltage shift under 10V write operation. Also, the manufacture technology using the sequent high-temperature oxidation of the a-Si layer acting as the blocking oxide is proposed to enhance the performance of nonvolatile memory devices.