Breakdown of gate oxides during irradiation with heavy ions

Author

Johnston, A.H. ; Swift, G.M. ; Miyahira, T. ; Edmonds, L.D.

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

45

Issue

6

fYear

1998

fDate

12/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

2500

Lastpage

2508

Abstract

Breakdown of thin gate oxides from heavy ions is investigated using capacitor test structures. Soft breakdown was observed for 45 Å oxides, but not for 75 Å oxides. Lower critical fields were observed when experiments were done with high fluences during each successive step. This implies that oxide defects play an important role in breakdown from heavy ions and that breakdown occurs more readily when an ion strike occurs close to a defect site. Critical fields for 75 Å oxides are low enough to allow gate rupture to occur at normal supply voltages for ions with high LET

Keywords

MOS capacitors; MOS integrated circuits; VLSI; dielectric thin films; ion beam effects; semiconductor device breakdown; 45 to 75 A; capacitor test structures; critical fields; gate oxide brakedown; heavy ion irradiation; oxide defects; soft breakdown; thin gate oxides; Breakdown voltage; Capacitors; Circuit testing; Digital circuits; Electric breakdown; Laboratories; MOSFETs; Propulsion; Space technology; Very large scale integration;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/23.736491

Filename

736491