A Review of Instability Mechanisms in Passivation Films

Over the past ten years a number of single and double-layer insulator structures have been studied for passivation of semiconductor device surfaces. This paper reviews the various charge instability mechanisms associated with these structures. These include ionic drift, polarization, slow electronic trapping, and double-layer effects. The known dependence of these effects on processing and material parameters is discussed and the current state-of-the-art for controlling these instabilities is reviewed.