Weibull slopes, critical defect density, and the validity of stress-induced-leakage current (SILC) measurements

Voltage, temperature, and polarity dependence of Weibull slopes are carefully measured using area scaling method over a wide range of voltages and temperatures for several oxide thickness (T/sub OX/) values in comparison with direct method. We investigate the validity of stress-induced-leakage-current (SILC), /spl Delta/J/J/sub 0|BD/, as a measure for the critical defect density, N/sub BD/. Our finding clearly shows that the /spl Delta/J/J/sub 0|BD/ cannot be used as a reliable measure of N/sub BD/. This work suggests that a re-evaluation of the breakdown models constructed from the SILC-based measurements is required in gate oxide reliability community, in particular, their validity in comparison with the statistically accurate breakdown data.