A general concept for monitoring plasma induced charging damage

Fast productive WLR characterisation methods of plasma induced damage of thin and thick MOS gate oxides

“…• gate oxide leakage tests (in inversion and accumulation) [1][2][3], • threshold voltage characterisation (different methods) [1,3,7], • transconductance and drain-source current characterisation, • charge pumping [2,8,9], • constant current diagnostic stress [3,10] not intended to cause breakdown (in inversion and accumulation), • fast exponentially ramped current breakdown stress including soft breakdown detection [11] (in inversion and accumulation). All measurements were performed on an Agilent 4072 parametric test station with a fully automatic wafer prober except the charge pumping tests which were carried out on separate test equipment.…”

“…A first characterisation measurement for any PID assessment is a gate oxide leakage current test of the investigated MOS transistor [1][2][3]10,12]. A high initial leakage current is a strong indicator for a dramatic PID degradation.…”

MOS transistor characteristics and its dependence of plasma charging degradation on the test structure layout for a 0.13µm CMOS technology

“…The fast Wafer Level Reliability (fWLR [6]) characterisation of the MOS transistors consisted of three parts as reported in [7]. All MOS transistors were measured for their initial transistor parameters.…”

Reliability of gate dielectrics and metal–insulator–metal capacitors

“…Due to plasma induced charging of the dielectric layer the lifetime can be significantly reduced [35][36][37]. In most cases PID cannot be completely ruled out from very early processing steps, such as polysilicon etch or contact hole etch, even when the dielectric test structure is protected by diodes connecting gate to bulk.…”