A study of quasi-breakdown mechanism in ultrathin gate oxide under various types of stress

Abstract

The quasi-breakdown (QB) in ultra thin gate oxide is investigated through the observation of defect generation during high field F-N stress and substrate hot hole and hot electron stresses. The interface trap density increases during stress and reaches to a same critical amount at the onset point of QB regardless of stress current density and stressing carrier type. The experiments also show that hot carriers are much more effective to trigger QB than F-N electrons at the same current level. This can be ascribed to the fact that hot carrier has much higher interface state generation rate than F-N electron does. All results consistently support the interface damage model for the QB occurrence. © 2000 Materials Research Society.