A method is presented for temperature assisted programming of flash memory for neuromorphic computing. The method includes training a chip in an environment having a first temperature, adjusting the first temperature to a second temperature in the environment, and employing the chip for inference in the second temperature environment. The first temperature is about 125° C. or higher and the second temperature is about 50° C. or lower.

A non-volatile memory (NVM) structure includes a first memory device including: a first inter-poly dielectric defined by an isolation layer over a first semiconductor layer over an insulator layer (SOI) stack over a bulk semiconductor substrate, a first tunneling insulator defined by the insulator layer, a first floating gate defined by the semiconductor layer of the SOI stack, and a first channel region defined in the bulk semiconductor substrate between a source region and a drain region. The memory device may also include a control gate over the SOI stack, an erase gate over a source region in the bulk substrate, and a bitline contact coupled to a drain region in the bulk substrate. The NVM structure may also include another memory device similar to the first memory device and sharing the source region.

Provided is a memory device including a substrate, a plurality of first stack structures, and a plurality of second stack structures. The substrate includes an array region and a periphery region. The first stack structures are disposed on the substrate in the array region. Each first stack structure sequentially includes: a first tunneling dielectric layer, a first floating gate, a first inter-gate dielectric layer, a first control gate, a first metal layer, a first cap layer, and the first stop layer. The second stack structures are disposed on the substrate in the periphery region. Each second stack structure sequentially includes: a second tunneling dielectric layer, a second floating gate, a second inter-gate dielectric layer, a second control gate, a second metal layer, a second cap layer, and the second stop layer. The first stack structures have a pattern density greater than a pattern density of the second stack structures.

An embodiment memory device includes a drain electrode disposed on a semiconductor substrate, a channel region in contact with the drain electrode, a source electrode in contact with the channel region, and a floating gate region in contact with the source electrode and the drain electrode, the floating gate region including a nano-dot region including at least one nano-dot gate, wherein the drain electrode is overlapped with the nano-dot region, and wherein the nano-dot region is overlapped with the channel region.

A non-volatile memory device includes a floating-node memory cell disposed in an integrated circuit (IC). The memory cell includes a floating-node, a control node, an erase node, a source node, and a drain node. The memory device also includes a high-voltage input node for coupling to an external programmable high-voltage source external to the IC. The memory device also includes a high-voltage switch circuit coupled to the high-voltage input node for providing a voltage signal for performing hot-electron programming of charges to the floating node and tunneling erase of charges from the floating node.

A semiconductor memory device according to an embodiment includes a semiconductor substrate, a first insulating layer, a second insulating layer, the first insulating layer between the semiconductor substrate and the second insulating layer, a semiconductor layer between the first insulating layer and the second insulating layer, the semiconductor layer extending in a first direction parallel to a surface of the semiconductor substrate, a gate electrode layer extending in a direction perpendicular to the surface; a first insulating film between the semiconductor layer and the gate electrode layer, a second insulating film between the first insulating film and the gate electrode layer the second insulating film in contact with the first insulating layer and the second insulating layer, a polycrystalline silicon region between the first insulating film and the second insulating film; and a metal film between the polycrystalline silicon region and the second insulating film containing titanium and silicon.

A method of forming a flash memory cell includes the following steps. A first dielectric layer and a floating gate layer are deposited on a substrate sequentially. Three blocking structures having oblique sidewalls broaden from bottom to top penetrating through the first dielectric layer and the floating gate layer are formed. A first part and a second part of the floating gate layer between two adjacent blocking structures are etched respectively, so that a first floating gate having two sharp top corners and oblique sidewalls, and a second floating gate having two sharp top corners and oblique sidewalls, are formed. The three blocking structures are removed. A first isolating layer and a first selective gate covering the first floating gate are formed and a second isolating layer and a second selective gate covering the second floating gate are formed. A flash memory cell formed by said method is also provided.

In some implementations, one or more semiconductor processing tools may form a triple-stacked polysilicon structure on a substrate of a semiconductor device. The one or more semiconductor processing tools may form one or more polysilicon-based devices on the substrate of the semiconductor device, wherein the triple-stacked polysilicon structure has a first height that is greater than one or more second heights of the one or more polysilicon-based devices. The one or more semiconductor processing tools may perform a chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) operation on the semiconductor device, wherein performing the CMP operation comprises using the triple-stacked polysilicon structure as a stop layer for the CMP operation.

A semiconductor memory device according to an embodiment, includes a semiconductor pillar extending in a first direction, a first electrode extending in a second direction crossing the first direction, a second electrode provided between the semiconductor pillar and the first electrode, a first insulating film provided between the semiconductor pillar and the second electrode, a second insulating film provided between the first electrode and the second electrode and on two first-direction sides of the first electrode, and a conductive film provided between the second electrode and the second insulating film, the conductive film not contacting the first insulating film.

Provided is a method of manufacturing a memory device and a patterning method. The patterning method includes following steps. A control structure including stop layers and oxide layers stacked alternately, a hard mask layer, and a mask pattern are sequentially formed on a target layer. A photoresist layer is formed in the mask pattern on the hard mask layer. A portion of the hard mask layer and a portion of the control structure are removed to form first openings by using the photoresist layer and the mask pattern as a mask. The photoresist layer and the hard mask layer are removed to form a second opening having a bottom surface higher than that of the first openings. At least one etching process is performed so that the first and second openings extend into and divide the control structure and the target layer into stack structures.