Gate oxide thickness dependence of RIE-induced damages on n-channel MOSFET reliability

We have investigated the effect of gate oxide thickness scaling on RIE-induced damage in n-MOSFETs. Our results show that active damage to gate oxide increases as the thickness is scaled down. On the other hand, thinner gate oxide devices show smaller degradation under hot carrier as well as Fowler-Nordheim stress compared to thicker gate oxide devices for a given antenna type and ratio. Reduced degradation in thinner oxide MOSFETs is explained based on smaller mobility degradation as well as on higher amount of channel inversion charge.