A new floating gate compact model applied to flash memory cell

The aim of this work is to present a method developed to simulate the direct current and transient properties of the floating gate memories. This method includes metal oxide semi-conductor charge neutrality, charges stored into the floating gate, injection currents and metal oxide semi-conductor field effects transistor characteristics to determine the surface potential variation along the channel, the floating gate potential and as a result the drain current and the threshold voltage. The resulting model was implemented in a common circuit simulator, Eldo, and used to study the flash memory writing/erasing operations. Channel hot electron injection and classical Fowler–Nordheim currents are used respectively to program and to erase this kind of memory. The simulator validation is obtained by comparing transient threshold voltage measurements performed on 0.15 μm devices with simulations.