Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) has become one of the most famous materials in recent years, especially in silicon photonics applications. This paper presents a comparative performance of a SOI-based optical interconnect (OI) vs. an electrical interconnect (EI) for high-speed performances at a circuit level. The SOI-based optical waveguide was designed using OptiBPM to obtain a single mode condition (SMC). Then, the optical interconnect (OI) link was simulated in OptiSPICE and was tested as an interconnection in two-stage CS amplifiers. The results showed that the two-stage CS amplifier using OI offered several advantages in terms of electrical performances, such as voltage gain, frequency bandwidth, slew rate, and propagation delay, which makes it superior to the EI.

The electron retention characteristics of memory capacitors with blocking oxide-silicon carbonitride (SiCN)-tunnel oxide stacked films were investigated for application in embedded charge trapping nonvolatile memories (NVMs). Long-term data retention in the SiCN memory capacitors was estimated to be more than 10 years at 85 °C. We presented an improved method to analyze the energy distribution of electron trap states numerically. Using the presented analytical method, electron trap states in the SiCN film were revealed to be distributed from 0.8 to 1.3 eV below the conduction band edge in the SiCN band gap. The presence of energetically deep trap states leads us to suggest that the SiCN dielectric films can be employed as the charge trapping film of embedded NVMs.