Study of DC Stress Induced Leakage Current (SILC) and its Dependence on Oxide Nitridation

In this study time-independent Stress Induced Leakage Current (DC SILC), an important reliability problem in non-volatile memory devices, is investigated. For the first time it was demonstrated by direct measurements that the DC SILC and the generated electron trap density in the oxide are one-to-one correlated, independent of the stress conditions. This correlation depends, however, on the nitridation conditions. For a given trap density a larger DC SILC is observed for nitrided oxides. Arguments are given that this is due to an enhanced conduction between traps generated in nitrided oxides.