SimpleEE Non-Volatile Memory Reliability Information For Additional information on reliability of cell and array click here

THERE ARE TWO AREAS OF RELIABILITY THAT IS CONCERN FOR NON-VOLATILE MEMORY: 1. DATA RETENTION - The ability of the memory cell to retain the data under adverse conditions of maximum operating temperature. Typical cells are tested and guarenteed for 10 years retention at Room temperature. This is an acceptable limit for comercial parts. If the Non-Volatile memory has to be used for high rliability applications the period has to be extended to at least 20 years at maximum operating temperature. "MEMTEK parts have been tested to over 20 years at 125C with no loss of charge."

Data Retention Test on units

2.PROGRAM/ERASE CYCLING Program erase cycling creates stress in the tunnel oxide due to charge transport across the tunnel oxide. This opperation can: a) Disrupt the tunnel oxide causing catastrophic failure during operation if weak spots are present in the oxide and high voltages suficient to rupture the oxide are applied to the cell. b) Enable charge trapping in the oxide causing the cell window ( the difference between program vt and the erase vt) of the cell to decrese. Typical NVM memory cells will withstand 100k cycles of program and erase. Most of the embedded NVM cells have shown a lower capacity for program/erase, typically in the 20K cycles. "MEMTEK cells have been tested to 1Million cycles of program erase and are guarenteed to over 200K cycles"

Program/ Erase Cycling