Hydrogen distribution in oxide-nitride-oxide stacks and correlation with data retention of MONOS memories

Author

Liu, Ziyuan ; Saito, Tomoya ; Matsuda, Tomoko ; Ando, Koichi ; Ito, Shu ; Wilde, Markus ; Fukutani, Katsuyuki

Author_Institution

Test & Anal. Eng. Div., NEC Electron. Corp., Kanagawa

fYear

2008

fDate

April 27 2008-May 1 2008

Firstpage

705

Lastpage

706

Abstract

We demonstrate that hydrogen (H) atom penetration into the bottom oxide (BTO) of ONO stacks degrades the retention reliability of MONOS memory. We observe that post-nitride (SiN) N₂-annealing improves the retention through a suppression of the H atom diffusion in ONO stacks. Nuclear reaction analysis revealed the presence of an ultra thin H-storage layer in the top oxide/SiN interface, which can effectively shield the BTO from H diffusion, and in turn provides H species resistant against energetic electron damage.

Keywords

MIS devices; annealing; integrated circuit reliability; integrated memory circuits; MONOS memory; ONO stacks; bottom oxide; data retention; energetic electron damage; hydrogen atom penetration; hydrogen distribution; oxide-nitride-oxide stacks; post-nitride annealing; retention reliability; Acceleration; Atomic layer deposition; Atomic measurements; Degradation; Electronic equipment testing; Electrons; Equations; Hydrogen; MONOS devices; Silicon compounds;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Reliability Physics Symposium, 2008. IRPS 2008. IEEE International

Conference_Location

Phoenix, AZ

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2049-0

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-2050-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/RELPHY.2008.4558998

Filename

4558998