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Novel Method for Nondestructive Body Effect Measurement in Dynamic Random Access Memory

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Abstract

Body effect is a key characteristic of a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) cell transistor. The conventional method uses a test element structure or nano-probe equipment for body effect measurements. However, the test element structure measurement is inaccurate because the structure is located outside the DRAM chip. Additionally, the nano-probe destroys the chip while measuring the body effect in the chip. Therefore, we developed a novel nondestructive method to measure the body effect in the DRAM. This method uses a memory bitmap test system. The test system was originally a device that determines pass or fail of the cells. However, it was modified to extract the gate voltage that causes the failure due to a cell transistor leakage current. Because the leakage current is correlated to the threshold voltage, this gate voltage is a relative threshold voltage. The body effect was obtained by measuring the relative threshold voltage under different body biases. After confirming the method in a single cell, we simplified the method for a mass cell measurement. Two relative threshold voltages for each body bias were used for a fast and simple test. The mass measurement method could obtain 8196 body cell effects within 2 min. The results of the newly developed method were the same as that of the conventional test element structure measurement.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) [grant number NRF-2016R1D1A1B03931349].

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Correspondence to Byoungdeog Choi.

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Responsible Editor: C.-W. Wu

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Jung, I., Sung, B. & Choi, B. Novel Method for Nondestructive Body Effect Measurement in Dynamic Random Access Memory. J Electron Test 33, 669–674 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-017-5676-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-017-5676-7

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