A novel distributed charge storage element fabricated by the oxidation of amorphous silicon carbide is proposed. For low-temperature oxidation processes, the oxidized SiCO gate stack shows a larger memory window due to the retainable dangling bonds with more Si-C bonding types and less Si-O bonds. Under 5 V write operation of the low-temperature oxidized SiCO stack, a 1.5 V threshold voltage shift is exhibited, which is sufficient for a memory device to define "0'' and "1.'' Also, the low-temperature oxidation process of the SiCO layer saves the thermal budget for the manufacturing processes of nonvolatile memory devices. (C) 2004 The Electrochemical Society.