Ultra-thin gate oxide yield and reliability

Author

Depas, M. ; Vermeire, B. ; Mertens, P.W. ; Meuris, M. ; Heyns, M.M.

Author_Institution

IMEC, Leuven, Belgium

fYear

1994

fDate

7-9 June 1994

Firstpage

23

Lastpage

24

Abstract

In this paper we demonstrate that ultra-thin (3-6 nm) gate oxides with a very good thickness uniformity and a low defect density can be grown by thermal oxidation using a conventional furnace. A strong reduction of the low field MOS leakage current, related to oxide wearout, is observed for thinner oxides and correlates with a dramatic improvement of the TDDB characteristics. It is shown that the voltage scaling of future MOS devices with an oxide thickness less than 5 nm will be determined by the direct tunnel current through the oxide.<>

Keywords

MOS integrated circuits; VLSI; circuit reliability; dielectric thin films; integrated circuit technology; leakage currents; metal-insulator-semiconductor devices; oxidation; tunnelling; 3 to 6 nm; MOS leakage current reduction; TDDB characteristics; conventional furnace; direct tunnel current; low defect density; reliability; thermal oxidation; ultra-thin gate oxide yield; voltage scaling; Capacitors; Contamination; Leakage current; Microelectronics; Oxidation; Silicon; Solid state circuits; Tunneling; Ultra large scale integration; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

VLSI Technology, 1994. Digest of Technical Papers. 1994 Symposium on

Conference_Location

Honolulu, HI, USA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1921-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/VLSIT.1994.324396

Filename

324396