Title :
Different nature of process-induced and stress-induced defects in thin SiO2 layers
Author :
Cellere, G. ; Valentini, M.G. ; Pantisano, L. ; Cheung, K.P. ; Paccagnella, A.
Author_Institution :
Dipt. di Ingegneria dell´´Informazione, Universita di Padova, Italy
fDate :
6/1/2003 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
High-temperature anneal in hydrogen ambient is performed at the end of a CMOS manufacturing process to recover the process-induced defects. The authors focus on the recovery and wearout of thin gate oxides (3.3 nm) during repetitive stress-anneal-stress cycles. Thermal annealing at 450 /spl deg/C leads to detrapping phenomena and to the complete recovering of electrically induced defects. On the other hand, the same thermal annealing is not capable of fully recovering the process-induced damage. The kinetic of defect recovering (and not the number of defects annealed out) strongly depends on the amount of latent damage.
Keywords :
CMOS integrated circuits; MOSFET; annealing; dielectric thin films; integrated circuit manufacture; integrated circuit reliability; semiconductor device reliability; silicon compounds; 3.3 nm; 450 degC; CMOS manufacturing process; H ambient; H/sub 2/; MOSFET devices; SiO/sub 2/; detrapping phenomena; electrically induced defects; gate oxide recovery; gate oxide reliability; gate oxide wearout; high-temperature anneal; process-induced damage; process-induced defects recovery; repetitive stress-anneal-stress cycles; thermal annealing; thin gate oxides; Annealing; Electric breakdown; Hydrogen; Lead compounds; Manufacturing processes; Plasma applications; Plasma chemistry; Plasma devices; Plasma materials processing; Stress;
Journal_Title :
Electron Device Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LED.2003.813369
