Impact of Residual Stress on a Polysilicon Channel in Scaled 3D NAND Flash Memory
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Questions
1) Why does your 3D simulation have 12 strings in Fig. 1? Mechanical stress may depend on the number of strings and the position of strings. So, more number of strings placed may reduce mechanical stresses induced by Tungsten.
2) What are the center and slit? Are those marked purple square dotted boxes in Fig. 1a?
3) How did you reflect mechanical stress from 3D toward 2D TCAD?
4) This work focused on threshold voltage and BL currents. But since it is 3D NAND Flash, threshold voltage distribution, data retention, and program/erase speed seem to be much important. This work also mentioned the threshold voltage shift in the negative direction and BL current degradation as the spacer thickness reduces. But these effects are not critical compared to grain boundaries in poly-Si. Also, this TCAD considers deformation potential which affects the energy bandgap of poly-Si channel by stress, and this would affect program/erase characteristics. Can you include these memory characteristics in your script to increase the quality of the paper?
Author Response
Dear,
I sincerely appreciate for reviewing my paper for Electronics.
I gave my best to respond to the reviewer's comments
The response file is attached.
Thank you
Hanyang Univserity
Juyoung Lee
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Authors simulated the residual stress of the polysilicon channel to understand the performance changes of the 3D NAND. They found the hole diameter and the thickness of the spacer affected the residual stress in the polysilicon channel. But there are still some unclear points in the manuscript. The comments for the manuscript of electronics-1426904 are showing in the list.
- Figure 2 in the manuscript shows the stress profile with the position. However, there is no number, unit and direction for the position axis. It is hard to know the real residual stress distribution. Authors might need to give a scheme of the devices with a line corresponded to the residual stress line profile.
- Could authors provide the I-V characteristics of the devices? It will be better if authors could show the experimental I-V and simulated I-V of devices together.
- What was the hole diameter for the results of stress vs spacer thickness?
Author Response
Dear,
I sincerely appreciate for reviewing my paper for Electronics.
I gave my best to respond to the reviewer's comments
The response file is attached.
Thank you
Hanyang Univserity
Juyoung Lee
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
No comments
Reviewer 2 Report
Authors have revised the manuscript with reviewers' concerns. The manuscript is now clear for reader. It should be ok for publication.
