Thin oxide thickness extrapolation from capacitance-voltage measurements

Point-defect generation in ultrathin silicon dioxide layers is studied for various initial hot-electron distributions at the cathode/oxide interface using injection modes dependent on the device structure. Consistent with thicker gate oxides studies, these experiments show unequivocally that defect buildup leading to destructive breakdown depends on electron energy, not oxide electric field (or inverse field). Bulk oxide electron-trap generation is shown to depend on the energy delivered to the anode by the hot electrons transported through the oxide layer after injection from the cathode contact. However, defect generation near the cathode/oxide interface is shown to also depend on the energy of the hot electrons delivered to this interface from the silicon bulk, particularly for nonthermal distributions. By comparing bulk oxide-defect generation due to substrate–hot-electron injection to that due to thermal Fowler–Nordheim injection, direct information about the electron energy distribution at the cathode/oxide interface is obtained for any biasing configuration. The implications of these studies on the reliability of actual device operation where channel–hot-electron effects may occur are discussed.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defect generation under substrate-hot-electron injection into ultrathin silicon dioxide layers

DiMaria

1999

“…Several attempts have been made to determine it from current-voltage (I -V) characteristics. [9][10][11][12][13] More recently, it has become possible to deduce other device parameters such as the SiO 2 conduction-band effective mass [14][15][16][17] or the gate-oxide thickness, [18][19][20][21][22] from I -V measurements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fowler–Nordheim conduction in polysilicon (n+)-oxide–silicon (p) structures: Limit of the classical treatment in the barrier height determination

Hadjadj

Salace

Petit

2001

Articles you may be interested inEllipsometric study of the polysilicon/thin oxide/single-crystalline silicon structure and its change upon annealing Boron penetration and thermal instability of p + polycrystalline-Si/ZrO 2 / SiO 2 /n-Si metal-oxide-semiconductor structures J. Appl. Phys. 91, 65 (2002); 10.1063/1.1419207 Effects of interface roughness and conducting filaments in metal-oxide-semiconductor tunnel structuresFowler-Nordheim current in Si-poly (n ϩ )-SiO 2 -Si(p) structures, with an oxide thickness varying between 3 and 12 nm, has been measured and numerically computed with the exact electric field in the oxide, the field dependence of the barrier shape with the image force, and the temperature effects. The fit of the experimental data leads to an accurate determination of the electron affinity difference and the barrier height at the emitting Si-poly (n ϩ )-gate-electrode-oxide interface. The evolution of these two parameters with temperature is discussed in relation with the oxide thickness.

“…There is no exact analytical solution for the Fermi integral, so either a wide-range analytical approximation is used, such as that given by in Blakemore,13 or an iterative solution is employed, such as the rational Chebyshev approximation described by Cody and Thatcher 14 which was used previously by Walstra and Sah 15 and which will be used also in this paper. Nevertheless, the Fermi-Dirac distribution is not always used due to algebraic complications and many orders of magnitude longer numerical computation time.…”

Section: R-dciv Line-shape Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Theoretical accuracy of using Boltzmann and ionized impurity approximations in the analyses of recombination current at interface traps in metal-oxide-silicon structures

Chen

Jie

Sah

2006

Articles you may be interested inBroadening of metal-oxide-semiconductor admittance characteristics: Measurement, sources, and its effects on interface state density analyses High concentration effects of neutral-potential-well interface traps on recombination dc current-voltage lineshape in metal-oxide-silicon transistors J. Appl. Phys. Correlation between channel mobility and shallow interface traps inSiC metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors J. Appl. Phys. 92, 6230 (2002); 10.1063/1.1513210 On the role of interface states in low-voltage leakage currents of metal-oxide-semiconductor structures Appl. Phys. Lett. 80, 4597 (2002); 10.1063/1.1487450Room-temperature electroluminescence from electron-hole plasmas in the metal-oxide-silicon tunneling diodes