Improvements of deposited interpolysilicon dielectric characteristics with RTP N/sub 2/O-anneal

Nitridation of deposited instead of thermally grown oxides was studied to form high-quality inter-polysilicon dielectric layers for nonvolatile memories. It was found that by optimizing the texture and morphology of the polysilicon layers, and by optimizing the post-dielectric deposition-anneal, very high-quality dielectric layers can be obtained. In this paper, it is shown that not only for deposited gate oxides, but also for deposited inter-polysilicon oxides, rapid thermal annealing leads to previously unpublished improved electrical characteristics, like high charge to breakdown (Q/sub bd//spl ap/20 C/cm/sup 2/) and lower leakage currents. Moreover, the annealed dielectrics had less electron trapping when stressed.