Title :
Statistically independent soft breakdowns redefine oxide reliability specifications
Author :
Alam, M.A. ; Smith, R.K. ; Weir, B.E. ; Silverman, P.J.
Author_Institution :
Agere Syst., Murray Hill, NJ, USA
Abstract :
The statistics of soft-breakdown events in ultrathin oxide transistors are studied. By using new theoretical techniques and quantitative analysis, we demonstrate that spatial and temporal correlations among the successive breakdown events are weak. This allows us to redefine the standard specification of oxide reliability and suggest that ultrathin oxides will be far more reliable and fault-tolerant than has been assumed thus far.
Keywords :
MOSFET; Weibull distribution; electric breakdown; fault tolerance; insulating thin films; integrated circuit reliability; semiconductor device reliability; statistical analysis; NMOS devices; PMOS devices; SiO/sub 2/; TDDB-limited lifetime; extrapolated Weibull curves; oxide reliability specifications; quantitative analysis; soft-breakdown event statistics; spatial correlations; statistically independent soft breakdowns; successive breakdown events; temporal correlations; ultrathin oxide fault tolerance; ultrathin oxide transistors; Circuits; Degradation; Electric breakdown; Electrodes; Fault tolerance; Lattices; Power generation; Statistical distributions; Statistics; Transistors;
Conference_Titel :
Electron Devices Meeting, 2002. IEDM '02. International
Conference_Location :
San Francisco, CA, USA
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7462-2
DOI :
10.1109/IEDM.2002.1175801
