Electric field dependent dielectric breakdown of intrinsic SiO/sub 2/ films under dynamic stress

Reliability of gate dielectrics and metal–insulator–metal capacitors

“…The model acceleration parameter must be assessed with care since large deviations in the predicted lifetimes can occur when extrapolating over many decades of time. Field extrapolation models for intrinsic breakdowns are reported and well supported theoretically and experimentally through large data sets [6,13,30,32,47]. However, there is no established model to extrapolate extrinsic breakdowns.…”

“…However, generally only DC conditions are applied since the measurement equipment is less cost expensive and the DC case represents the worst case dielectric stress. An AC stress model for lifetime extrapolation has been proposed in the literature [30].…”

“…For gate oxide test structures the most common field acceleration models are: the 1/E-model (mainly high field region) [29] which is used in combination with the E-model (for low field region) [49], the more conservative E-model [30,31] is employed for intermediate and thick SiO 2 thicknesses and the power law model for thin oxides [32].…”

Reliable cache design with detection of gate oxide breakdown using BIST

“…Due to the different roles each plays during read/write/retention, the gate size and the amount of time the dielectric is under stress varies significantly among the three types of transistors. Since gate dielectric breakdown is a strong function of gate area [2] and stress frequency [6], using the same wearout functions for all the transistors in the cell could lead to highly inaccurate predictions. To predict the cause of SRAM failure from among the transistors in the cell, probability density functions of wearout were modeled for each D 978-1-4244-5028-2/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEEindividual transistor.…”

“…Even during the activation, these devices are not under DC stress like the devices in the latch, but are activated using uni-polar pulses with typically high frequencies. [6] analyzed the effect of dynamic stress on dielectric breakdown behavior and showed a very strong dependence of dielectric breakdown on the frequency of stress. A correction factor, K(f), was then introduced in the Weibull parameter η to account for the stress frequency variations for different devices:…”