CONTOURED NONVOLATILE MEMORY CELL

摘要

A nonvolatile memory cell of the type having a single lateral transistor includes source and drain regions separated by a channel region. A floating gate is provided over at least the channel region and is separated therefrom by a gate oxide, with a control gate over the floating gate and insulated therefrom. By having the floating gate extend over substantially its entire length at a substantially constant distance from the surface of the device and providing the floating gate and the surface with similarly-contoured corners adjacent ends of the source and drain regions alongside the channel region, the nonvolatile memory cell can be programmed and erased using lower voltages than those required by prior-art devices.