Mechanism of state transition of a defect causing random-telegraph-noise-induced fluctuation in stress-induced leakage current of SiO₂films

Abstract

Dynamic fluctuation in stress-induced leakage current, called V-SILC, which is one of the causes of erratic bits in flash memory, was investigated. This investigation showed that V-SILC is attributed to random telegraph noise, which is associated with a state transition of a single defect. To analyze the mechanism of the state transition, dependences of state-transition probabilities on gate current and temperature were investigated. These dependences indicate that the state transitions are caused by current injection, and the mechanism of the state transition causing V-SILC is a defect-structure transition caused by charge collision.

High-Performance Gate-Controlled Superconducting Switches: Large Output Voltage and Reproducibility

“…It is well-established that these processes in dielectrics like SiO 2 can lead to the formation of metallic weak links that act as paths of low resistance for I leak thus reducing the breakdown voltage of the dielectric. 46,47 The same effects, however, can be achieved not only by applying a V G *, but also by injecting a high current through the dielectric. This process known as stress-induced leakage current (SILC) has been studied for metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors down to low temperature, where it has been reported that SILC manifests through fluctuations in I leak occurring over periods of few seconds.…”

“…We attribute the fluctuations in I leak and I c to electromigration and/or diffusion processes of atomic species that occur in the SiO 2 /Si substrate under an applied V G * . It is well-established that these processes in dielectrics like SiO 2 can lead to the formation of metallic weak links that act as paths of low resistance for I leak thus reducing the breakdown voltage of the dielectric. , …”

Low-frequency noise in downscaled silicon transistors: Trends, theory and practice

“…The tunneling ∆n model for 1/f noise in MOS transistors, which was originally suggested in [85], has been followed up widely [47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,72,74,80,82,83,87,89,91,95,101,103,106,107,110,124,126,127,128,136,137,138,139,140,141,142,143,144,145]. It assumes that some charge carriers are trapped in the depth of the gate oxide.…”