Voltage-dependent voltage-acceleration of oxide breakdown for ultra-thin oxides

Author

Wu, E.Y. ; Aitken, J. ; Nowak, E. ; Vayshenker, A. ; Varekamp, P. ; Hueckel, G. ; McKenna, J. ; Harmon, D. ; Han, L.-K. ; Montrose, C. ; Dufresne, R.

Author_Institution

Microelectron. Div., IBM Corp., Essex Junction, VT, USA

fYear

2000

fDate

10-13 Dec. 2000

Firstpage

541

Lastpage

544

Abstract

We report the voltage-dependence of voltage acceleration for ultra-thin oxides from 2.2 V to 5 V over a range of T/sub ox/ values from 1.7 nm to 5.0 nm. This unique behavior manifest itself as a power-law voltage-dependence for time-to-breakdown (T/sub BD/) over a variety of experimental observations. Using the concept of energy-to-breakdown, we explore the possible scenarios such as fractional energy or defect generation probability as a function of voltage to account for the increase in voltage acceleration with decreasing voltages.

Keywords

electric breakdown; insulating thin films; silicon compounds; 2.2 to 5 V; SiO/sub 2/; defect generation; energy-to-breakdown; fractional energy; gate oxide breakdown; time-to-breakdown; ultrathin film; voltage acceleration; voltage dependence; Acceleration; Accelerometers; Breakdown voltage; CMOS technology; Capacitors; Electric breakdown; Microelectronics; Physics; Stress measurement; Tunneling;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electron Devices Meeting, 2000. IEDM '00. Technical Digest. International

Conference_Location

San Francisco, CA, USA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-6438-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IEDM.2000.904375

Filename

904375