J-ramp on sub-3 nm dielectrics: noise as a breakdown criterion

Author

Alers, G.B. ; Weir, B.E. ; Frei, M.R. ; Monroe, D.

Author_Institution

AT&T Bell Labs., Murray Hill, NJ, USA

fYear

1999

fDate

1999

Firstpage

410

Lastpage

413

Abstract

An alternate criterion of failure for very thin oxides is proposed that can reliably detect the occurrence of both soft breakdown and hard breakdown during accelerated stress tests. We show that an increase in current noise that occurs at oxide breakdown can be detected rapidly with commercial test equipment, even when no discernable voltage drop can be observed. As an initial test vehicle for implementation of a noise test, we chose the JEDEC standard J-ramp test. This test can be implemented with very minor software changes and can detect both hard and soft breakdowns for 2-6 nm oxides

Keywords

dielectric thin films; electric breakdown; failure analysis; integrated circuit noise; integrated circuit reliability; integrated circuit testing; life testing; standards; 2 to 6 nm; JEDEC standard J-ramp test; Si; SiO₂-Si; accelerated stress tests; current noise; current noise breakdown criterion; failure criterion; hard breakdown; noise test implementation; oxide breakdown; oxide thickness; soft breakdown; test equipment; test vehicle; very thin oxides; voltage drop; Breakdown voltage; Data analysis; Dielectric breakdown; Electric breakdown; Noise level; Noise robustness; Production; Software testing; System testing; Test equipment;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Reliability Physics Symposium Proceedings, 1999. 37th Annual. 1999 IEEE International

Conference_Location

San Diego, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5220-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/RELPHY.1999.761648

Filename

761648