Plasma charging damage to gate dielectric-past, present and future

Plasma charging damage to thin gate dielectric evolves with the integrated circuit technology. As gate dielectric thins down, its sensitivity to electrical stress changes, so are the impacts of such stress on device and circuit reliability. Concurrent to that change, is the change in plasma systems used in production. The convolution of the two determines the seriousness of plasma charging damage, as well as its methods of characterization. As the industry poise to make yet another major change, namely to high-k gate dielectric, the problem of plasma charging damage will have to be treated differently again.