Investigation of PVD HfO2MIM capacitors for Si RF and mixed signal ICs application

The electrical characteristics of high-κ PVD HfO₂ metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors from IF (10 KHz) to RF (20 GHz) frequency range is investigated in this paper. High-κ HfO₂ dielectric with two thicknesses of 22 and 47 nm are fabricated, the respective capacitance densities are 7.3 and 3.5 fF/μm² and the two samples are denoted as HfO-1 to HfO-2. To investigate the capacitance characteristics of HfO₂ MIM capacitors in RF regime, the equivalent circuit model for capacitance is established. Thickness dependence of stress induced leakage currents (SILCs) for HfO₂ MIM capacitors is observed from J-V characteristics. For the C-V characteristics of HfO₂ MIM capacitors, the distortion of C-V curve after stress was reflected by the reduction of quadratic coefficients, exhibiting a flatten-out characteristic.