Department 3 of the Institute of Microelectronics, China Academy of Sciences, on the basis of the technical difficulties of mainstream Flash technology at present, conducted study on materials and key technologies for nanocrystals floating gate memory centering on mainstream direction of high-density semiconductor non-volatile memory technology – nanocrystals floating gate memory in the mode of combination of enterprises, colleges and research institutes, depending on R&D of new memory materials and closely relying on the supporting schemes of process integration and application of electrical circuit, achieved verification for feasibility of application on enterprise’ production line.
In laboratory research in the previous years, we focused on nanocrystals floating gate memory structure, analyzed the approach for improving performances of nanocrystal floating gate devices based on device structure, established charge control model for nanocrystals floating gate memory, developed a series of methods for preparing high-quality nanocrystals, solved the problem of structure design and screening of new nanocrystals memory materials, and laid a solid foundation for practical application of nanocrystals floating gate memory. Research focus for the current stage is to shift laboratory research results to 8” production line. The technology has been applied to manufacture 8” LPCVD equipment in Shanghai Hongli Semiconductor Manufacture Co., Ltd, which achieved preparation of new silicon nanocrystal memory material and process optimization, solved the technical difficulty, control for sizes and distribution uniformity of nanocrystal materials, as well as the compatibility problem with 8” CMOS process, realized stable memory unit preparing process flow, and obtained better memory performance, primarily achieved verification for manufacturing of nanocrystals floating gate memory unit; and the test results have basically met demands of tape-out of test chips. This is the first time in China to conduct new non-volatile memory research and development based on nanocrystal materials at Fab factory; relying on memory materials and key technologies for nanocrystals floating gate memory, self-development capability has been primarily formed in terms of new memory materials, new device structure and nanometer processing; for the research work taking manufacturing of enterprise as the target, research achievements have a great significance for promoting self-innovation capability of micro-electronics industry in China, will lay a foundation for constructing the core of memory technologies in China and also provided an example for research results shifted to practical application. 
On the basis of memory unit tape-out test results obtained by Hongli Company, our institute at present is cooperating with Micro-Electronics Institute of Tsinghua University to conduct nanocrystals floating gate memory circuit design. The next will focus on the technical difficulty, integration of nanocrystals floating gate memory, to obtain the key technology of 8-16Mb floating gate memory using nanocrystals memory material thus to lay a foundation for product development.