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US 7,067,873 B2Granted
Charge trapping device
AssigneeProgressant Technologies, Inc.
InventorsTsu-Jae King, David K. Y. Liu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A silicon based semiconductor device and method uses charge trapping to alter a density of carriers available in a channel of a field effect transistor (FET) for conduction. The charge trapping mechanism can be controlled by a source-drain bias voltages applied to the FET, so that the device can be turned off through a control mechanism separate from a gate voltage.
Claims8
A method of operating a silicon based semiconductor device comprising the steps of:
- (a) receiving a bias voltage across a channel region of the silicon based semiconductor device, said channel region being coupled to a source region and a drain region;
- (b) trapping carriers in a dielectric layer located proximate to said channel region to cause a change in a density of carriers available for conduction in said channel region;
- (c) adjusting said bias voltage to control a number of charge carriers removed by said dielectric layer from said channel region,
- wherein the silicon based semiconductor device can be switched off using said bias voltage and without using a program and/or an erase cycle.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.