Thin Gate Insulators for VLSI

Thin gate SiO2 films less than 200A often suffer from various deteriorating effects throughout developmental VLSI processes. Thermal nitridation of SiO2 has improved MOS characteristics with such thin SiO2 films producing surface protective layers against impurity penetration and good interfacial properties. This fact verifies that the most promising candidate for a very thin gate insulator is a thermally grown silicon nitride film on a silicon substrate. The experimental results have shown significant benefits to future VLSI devices.