Reliability assessment of thin gate oxides with a low level leakage current induced by plasma damage

Reliability stresses were applied to determine whether or not thin gate oxides with low level leakage currents induced by plasma charging damage can meet gate oxide and hot electron reliability requirements. The low level gate oxide leakage currents are sufficiently small that they all pass the leakage fail criteria. The gate oxide degradation shows polarity, temperature, and gate material dependence, and is far worse for p-channel gate oxides. Gate oxide degradation is much worse than hot electron degradation, and shows serious reliability risks which may limit gate oxide scaling