The comparison of simulated write/erase characteristics of silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) nonvolatile memory with different oxides SiO2, Al2O3 and ZrO2 as a top dielectric was made. We demonstrate, that an application of high-k dielectrics allows to decrease the write/erase programming voltage amplitude or programming time from 1 ms to 10 mus. The ZrO2 suppresses parasitic electron injection from polysilicon gate. Also the design of SONOS memory based on high-k dielectrics is promising for terabit scale using hot carriers injection EEPROM and DRAM memory. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.