Investigation of SILC via energy resolved spin dependent tunneling spectroscopy

Stress induced leakage currents (SILC) are one of the most important reliability problems in present day CMOS technology. We have developed a new approach to SDT which exploits advantages provided by extremely thin (¿1.2nm) dielectrics. The enormous difference between the high capacitance of the thin dielectric and the much smaller capacitance of the Si depletion layer allows application of a modest voltage to sweep the Si/dielectric Fermi level (EF) through most of the Si band gap with very little net drop across the dielectric. Our approach thus provides direct information about defect energy levels involved in SILC. The devices used are 1.2nm EOT SiO¿N¿ MOS capacitors.