Abstract :
Various ultrathin oxynitride gate dielectrics of similar thickness (~1.2 nm) fabricated by a combination of an in situ steam generated and remote plasma nitridation treatment (RPN), an RPN with rapid thermal NO annealing (RPN-NO), and an RPN with rapid thermal O2 annealing (RPN-O2) are reported in this paper. The RPN-NO gate dielectric films show superior interface properties including relatively high nitrogen concentration near the poly-Si/oxide interface and smooth interfaces, excellent electrical characteristics in terms of lower leakage current, better electron and hole channel mobility, higher drive current, and significantly improved reliability such as stress-induced leakage current, hot carrier injection, and negative bias temperature instability, compared to other gate dielectrics fabricated by different processes.
Keywords :
dielectric materials; hot carriers; leakage currents; rapid thermal annealing; reliability; electrical reliability characteristics; hole channel mobility; hot carrier injection; in situ steam generation; negative bias temperature; oxynitride gate dielectric films; rapid thermal annealing; remote plasma nitridation treatment; stress-induced leakage current; ultrathin oxynitride gate dielectrics; Charge carrier processes; Dielectric films; Electric variables; Electron mobility; Leakage current; Nitrogen; Plasma materials processing; Plasma properties; Rapid thermal annealing; Rapid thermal processing; In situ steam generated (ISSG); RPN with rapid thermal NO$_{2}$ (RPN-NO); RPN with rapid thermal O $_{2}$ (RPN-O$_{2}$ ); interface; oxide/Si-substrate; oxynitride; poly-Si/oxide; remote plasma nitridation (RPN);
