Nonvolatile and Volatile Memory Characteristics of a Silicon Nanowire Feedback Field-Effect Transistor With a Nitride Charge-Storage Layer

We demonstrate the nonvolatile and volatile memory characteristics of a gate-all-around silicon nanowire feedback field-effect transistor (FBFET) with a nitride charge-storage layer analyzed by a commercial TCAD simulator. Our FBFET exhibits a threshold voltage window of 0.76 V with a programming/erasing time of
${1}~\mu \text{s}$
in the nonvolatile memory mode. We investigated the delay of read operations with accumulated charges in the intrinsic channel region in this memory mode. Moreover, the FBFET exhibits a sensing margin of 6.3
$\mu \text{A}$
and a read/write speed of 10 ns with an outstanding retention time, as well as nondestructive read characteristics in the volatile memory mode, allowing this device to operate without any refresh operation. In addition, we describe the operating principle of our device and demonstrate its potential as integrated memory for 3-D integrations.