Model for the leakage instability in unprogrammed amorphous silicon antifuse devices

The leakage instability of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (H:a-Si) antifuse devices is one of the important reliability aspects of this new technology, because it determines the standby power for circuit applications. A physical model of the leakage instability is described. After highly accelerated voltage stress, the transport mechanism for the saturated state is shown to be hopping conduction through trap states near the Fermi level. Trap densities on the order of 1/spl times/10/sup 20/ eV/sup -1/ cm/sup -3/ can be induced through stress. This model can be used to facilitate antifuse technology development.