A new mechanism for gate oxide degradation and its applications

A surface plasmon (SP) based anode hole injection model for gate oxide degradation/breakdown is presented. This model proposes that the hole trapping in the oxide is mainly due to injected holes from the anode that are generated by the decay of the SP´s to electron-hole pairs at the anode interface, finally resulting in oxide breakdown when the trapped positive charge accumulates to a critical value. The surface plasmon excitation energy is shown to decrease with increasing temperature, which in turn causes the positive charge generation to increase and the charge to breakdown to decrease