Hot-electron injection driven by hole impact ionization in the channel-to-drain
junction of a p-channel MOSFET provides a new mechanism for writing a floating-gate
memory. Various pFET floating-gate structures use a combination of this mechanism
and electron tunneling to implement nonvolatile analog memory, nonvolatile digital
memory, or on-line learning in silicon. The memory is nonvolatile because the devices
use electrically isolated floating gates to store electronic charge. The devices
enable on-line learning because the electron injection and tunneling mechanisms
that write the memory can occur during normal device operation. The memory updates
and learning are bidirectional because the injection and tunneling mechanisms add
and remove electrons from the floating gate, respectively. Because the memory updates
depend on both the stored memory and the pFETs terminal voltages, and because they
are bidirectional, the devices can implement on-line learning functions.