Aluminum-Doped Gadolinium Oxides as Blocking Layer for Improved Charge Retention in Charge-Trap-Type Nonvolatile Memory Devices

Aluminum-doped gadolinium oxides GdAlOx are proposed as a blocking oxide layer in charge-trap-type Flash memory cell devices. Greatly improved operation speed and charge retention properties have been demonstrated, compared to conventional Al2O3 blocking layer. The optimization of Al percentage in GdAlOx, as well as charge loss mechanism in the memory cell device, has also been systematically studied.