Radiation response of floating gate EEPROM memory cells

The effect of radiation on a floating gate EEPROM nonvolatile memory cell is determined experimentally and modeled analytically. The new model predicts the threshold voltage change resulting from radiation. A screen based on the initial 1 state (excess electron) threshold voltage is shown to be necessary to assure data retention during irradiation. Techniques to increase radiation hardness are also described. The hardness of floating gate cells is shown to be limited to less than 100 krad(Si) for a fixed reference sense amplifier. The use of a differential sense amplifier may increase this limit. Therefore, floating gate memories should be useful for those applications requiring low total-doses