Radiation Effects of a 128Mb NOR Type B4-Flash

Commercial off-the shelf (COTS) NOR Flash are popular with space designer thanks to its high-density capabilities and short-development cycles. However, the radiation issues of commercial Flash are worth to be seriously valued. B4-Flash, which indicates NOR Flash memory utilizing back bias assisted band-to-band tunneling induced hot-electron injection Flash, was proposed by Shojishukuriet et al. in 2006. It was noticed for its lower programming voltage and higher endurance. In this paper, we characterize the radiation responses of a 128Mb NOR type B4-Flash with floating gate cells. The devices are separately irradiated with heavy ion beams and 60Co γray. The phenomena are even worse than we expected. Then the single event effects and the total ionizing dose effects of B4-Flash are discussed and compared to the typical NOR Flash, as well as Flash with SONOS process.