A new method of improving ONO integrity using low temperature APM in 0.15 μm flash memory

Author

Zhao, Jing ; Wong, Kumfai ; Ng, Junsyong ; Mukhopadhyay, M. ; Zhang, Wenyi ; You, Youngseon ; Shukla, Dhruva Kant ; Pey, Kinsan

Author_Institution

Syst. on Silicon Manuf. Co. Pte. Ltd., Singapore

fYear

2005

fDate

13-15 Sept. 2005

Firstpage

460

Lastpage

462

Abstract

Oxide-nitride-oxide (ONO) film has been used as interpoly dielectric in 01.5 μm stacked-gate flash memory in this work. It was found out that the yield of the flash products were strongly affected by inline ONO thickness. In order to improve the uniformity of the inline ONO thickness, the effects of a new method of low temperature APM clean on ONO film, including oxide loss, surface condition and the electrical properties of ONO have been studied. It is observed that better ONO integrity with less surface roughness, better uniformity, hence longer time dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) and stable yield can be achieved by using this new LT-APM cleaning method.

Keywords

flash memories; integrated circuit yield; semiconductor device breakdown; surface roughness; electrical properties; flash products; interpoly dielectric; oxide loss; oxide-nitride-oxide film; stacked-gate flash memory; surface condition; surface roughness; time dependent dielectric breakdown; CMOS technology; Chemicals; Dielectrics; Flash memory; Fluctuations; Nonvolatile memory; Rough surfaces; Surface cleaning; Surface roughness; Temperature;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Semiconductor Manufacturing, 2005. ISSM 2005, IEEE International Symposium on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9143-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISSM.2005.1513405

Filename

1513405