Temperature accelerated gate oxide degradation under plasma-inducedcharging

Gate oxide charging during plasma processing of submicron devices becomes a serious yield and reliability concern, especially when oxide thickness and device dimensions shrink to the nanoscale region. This paper shows that wafer temperature is a crucial parameter for charging-induced oxide degradation due to plasma processing. Experimental results from plasma damaged submicron MOS transistors, namely low-level gate leakage and degraded charge-to-breakdown characteristics are analyzed from the point of view of conditions of electrical stress. Laboratory experiments simulating plasma charging, performed at 150°C, confirmed that elevated temperature during plasma processing strongly accelerates oxide degradation and even at low-level stress leads to effects observed in plasma damaged devices     

Hole trap generation in the gate oxide due to plasma-inducedcharging

The paper presents results of hole trapping studies in-thin gate oxide of plasma damaged MOS transistors. Process-induced damage was investigated with antenna test structures to enhance the effect of plasma charging. In addition to neutral electron traps and passivated interface damage, which are commonly observed plasma charging latent damage, we observed and identified hole traps, generated by plasma stress. The amount of hole traps increases with increasing antenna ratio, indicating that the mechanism of hole trap generation is based on electrical stress and current flow, forced through the oxide during plasma etching. The density of hole traps in the most damaged devices was found to be larger than that in reference, undamaged devices by about 100%     

Reliability issues in submicron MOSFETs with oxynitride gate dielectrics

A review of critical reliability issues in submicron MOSFETs with oxynitride gate dielectrics is presented. We have focussed our attention on: substrate and gate currents in short channel MOSFETs, hot carrier induced MOSFET degradation under DC and AC stress, gate-induced drain leakage current and its enhancement due to stress, neutral trap generation due to electrical stress and degradation of analog MOSFET parameters. We have also discussed the problems of radiation induced neutral trap generation and boron penetration through the gate dielectric, which arise due to the advanced processing techniques utilized in submicron MOSFET processing. It is concluded that the use of oxynitride gate dielectrics can effectively solve several reliability issues encountered in scaling down MOSFETs to submicron dimensions.     

The prospect of process-induced charging damage in future thin gate oxides

Gate oxide scaling effect on plasma charging damage is discussed for various IC fabrication processes such as metal etching, contact oxide etching, high current ion implantation, and via contact sputtering. Capacitance distortion, stress-induced leakage current, MOSFET characteristics, and circuit performance are used for evaluating the charging damage. We observed that very thin gate oxides are less susceptible to the charging damage because of their lower rate of interface damage, larger charge-to-breakdown, and less device determined stress voltage in the plasma system. We also discuss the diode protection scheme and design techniques for minimizing the charging damage. Latent damage exists after thermal annealing and can be revealed during the subsequent device operation causing circuit performance degradation. High density plasma etching is a trend of the etching technology as it provides better anisotropy, selectivity, and uniformity. Its effects on oxide charging damage is compared with low-density plasma etching. The resistance to process-induced charging damage of future devices appears to be high. This is counter-intuitive and is a good tiding for the future of IC manufacturing. The emergence of alternative gate dielectric raises questions about charging damage that requires further studies.     

Plasma-induced micro breakdown in small-area MOSFETs

We investigated the impact of latent plasma-induced damage (PID) on the reliability of nMOSFETs with small gate area and gate-oxide thickness of 3.2 nm. To this purpose, we stressed 1500 devices with different antenna areas by using a staircase-like stress voltage and by monitoring the gate leakage at the gate voltage V/sub G/=+2 V. The stress was always stopped because of an abrupt jump in the gate current. The statistics obtained for the breakdown current are characterized by two different oxide-breakdown modes. The first is the well-known hard breakdown (HB), while the second one, which we called micro breakdown (MB), can be modeled as a double trap-assisted tunneling (D-TAT) mechanism and is characterized by a very small leakage current (around 100 pA at the gate voltage V/sub G/=2 V). In devices with large antenna, i.e., more prone to be damaged by plasma processing, the number of microbroken oxides is larger and breakdown occurs at lower voltages than in reference devices (non plasma damaged). Conversely, the hard breakdown statistics shows only a weak dependence on the gate antenna ratio of plasma damaged devices. This has been explained by considering the intrinsic nature of latent plasma-induced oxide defects, linked to the different generation mechanisms involved in micro breakdown and hard breakdown phenomena.     

Leakage current variation during two different modes of electrical stressing in undoped hydrogenated n-channel polysilicon thin film transistors (TFTs)

Leakage current evolution during two different modes of electrical stressing in hydrogenated-undoped n-channel polysilicon thin film transistors (TFTs) is studied in this work. On-state bias stress (high drain bias and positive gate bias) and off-state bias stress (high drain bias and negative gate bias) were performed in order to study the degradation of the leakage current. It is found that during off-state bias stress the gate oxide is more severely damaged than the SiO₂-polySi interface. In contrast, during on-state bias stress, two different degradation mechanisms were detected which are analyzed.     

Radiation-induced depassivation of latent plasma damage

Plasma treatments are widely used in microelectronic industry but they may leave some residual passivated damage in the gate oxides at the end of the processing. The plasma-induced damage can be amplified by metal interconnects (antenna) attached to the gate during the plasma treatments. Ionising radiation reactivates this latent damage, which produces enhanced oxide charge and Si/SiO₂ interface state density. Two CMOS technologies have been investigated, with 5 and 7 nm gate oxides. Threshold voltage shifts, transconductance decrease, and interface traps build-up are always larger for plasma damaged devices than for reference devices.     

Nondestructive DCIV method to evaluate plasma charging damage inultrathin gate oxides

Understanding and minimizing plasma charging damage to ultrathin gate oxides became a growing concern during the fabrication of deep submicron MOS devices. Reliable detecting techniques are essential to understand its impact on device reliability. As the gate oxide thickness of MOSTs rapidly scales down, the conventional nondestructive methods such as capacitor C-V and threshold voltage and subthreshold swing of MOSTs are no longer effective for evaluating this damage in gate oxide. In this paper, the newly developed direct-current current-voltage (DCIV) technique is reported as an effective monitor for plasma charging damage in ultrathin oxide. The DCIV measurements for p-MOSTs with both 50- and 37-Å gate oxides clearly show the plasma charging damage region on the wafers and are consistent with the results of charge-to-breakdown measurements. In comparing with charge-to-breakdown measurement and other conventional methods, the DCIV technique hits the advantages of nondestructiveness, high sensitivity and rapid evaluation     

A model for n-well junction effect on gate-charging damage inPMOSFETs

A quantitative model explaining N-well junction effect on gate charging damage in PMOSFETs is presented. This model takes into account the reverse-biased N-well junction leakage, generated both thermally and by photons and its behavior on limiting charging current passing through gate oxide during plasma processing. The modeling results suggest that plasma illumination plays a key role in enabling gate charging damage in PMOSFETs. The model can also apply to reverse-biased source and drain junctions in both P and NMOSFETs during plasma events     

Analysis of thin gate oxide degradation during fabrication ofadvanced CMOS ULSI circuits

The electrical characteristics uniquely associated with the thin gate oxide degradation of the advanced CMOS technology in manufacturing were determined for the first time. They were different from Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) stress, and therefore, cannot be simulated by the F-N stress. The p⁺ thin gate oxides were found to be inherently more susceptible to gate oxide degradation than the n⁺ gate oxides. The p⁺ oxide degradation is caused by a combination of the process-induced defect and plasma charging. The nature of the defect and its formation were identified by electrical and physical analysis. The defect formation was modeled. The p-channel gate oxide degradation will be worse with gate oxide scaling, and may limit the device scaling     

Tunneling into interface states as reliability monitor for ultrathin oxides

This paper reports experimental data and simulations of low-voltage tunneling in ultrathin oxide MOS devices. When the substrate is very heavily doped, a thermionic barrier is present that opposes the direct tunneling of gate electrons when the applied gate voltage is between 0 V and the flatband voltage. In such conditions, we show that the measured gate current cannot be explained by direct tunneling, but features an additional, dominant component. The temperature dependence of this extra component indicates that it is due to gate electrons tunneling into the anode interface states. By comparing measurements and simulations, it is possible to exploit this extra current to estimate the interface state density within the silicon band gap. In addition, it is shown that this tunneling current component is very sensitive to electrical stress and allows a clear detection of oxide wear out even for stress at very low field. Therefore, it can be adopted as monitor of oxide degradation in ultrathin oxides where the traditional stress induced leakage current due to bulk-oxide traps is not detectable.     

FGA effects on plasma-induced damage: beyond the appearances

Indispensable for manufacturing of modern CMOS technologies, plasma processes result in charging of dielectric surfaces, thus damaging the gate oxide. A forming gas annealing (FGA) step is usually done at the end of the process to passivate and/or recover this damage. We investigated this problem on thin (3.5 nm) gate oxides by using a series of stress-anneal-stress steps on devices with different level of latent damage. Our results confirm that FGA actually reduces the number of traps responsible for stress-induced leakage current (SILC) or for microbreakdown in ultrathin gate oxides, but also put in evidence that defects induced by plasma treatments and those generated by way of electrical stress feature different anneal kinetics. Further, we have identified two categories of dielectric breakdown events, whose characteristics are strongly modified by the FGA step.     

Improved reliability of HfO/sub 2//SiON gate stack by fluorine incorporation

Effects of fluorine (F) incorporation on the reliabilities of pMOSFETs with HfO/sub 2//SiON gate stacks have been studied. In this letter, fluorine was incorporated during the source/drain implant step and was diffused into the gate stacks during subsequent dopant activation. The authors found that F introduction only negligibly affects the fundamental electrical properties of the transistors, such as threshold voltage V/sub th/, subthreshold swing, gate leakage current, and equivalent oxide thickness. In contrast, reduced generation rates in interface states and charge trapping under constant voltage stress and bias temperature stress were observed for the fluorine-incorporated split. Moreover, the authors demonstrated for the first time that F incorporation could strengthen the immunity against plasma charging damage.     

Recovery and stress dynamics in bipolar transistors and MOS devices

Stress and recovery dynamics of bipolar transistors and ultra thin oxide MOS devices have been investigated. We have found that these devices can exhibit similarities in the stress dynamics. The recovery during heat treatment was also investigated and it was found that both the dynamics and the temperature dependence of the recovery were very similar for both bipolar and MOS devices. These findings indicate that the defects might be similar where bipolar current gain degradation and MOS gate oxide charging are concerned.     

Micro breakdown in small-area ultrathin gate oxides

The purpose of this work was to study the gate oxide leakage current in small area MOSFETs. We stressed about 300 nMOSFETs with an oxide thickness t/sub OX/=3.2 nm by using a staircase gate voltage. We detected the oxide breakdown at an early stress stage, by measuring the leakage current at low fields during the stress. The gate leakage of stressed devices is broadly distributed, but two well-defined current regimes appear, corresponding to currents larger than 1 mA or smaller than 100 pA, respectively. We focused our attention on the small current regime, which shows all the electrical characteristics typical of the soft breakdown, with the noticeable exception of the current intensity that is much smaller than usually reported in literature, being the average leakage around 40 pA at V/sub G/=+2 V. For this reason, we introduce the oxide micro breakdown. The leakage kinetics during stress, the gate-voltage characteristics of stressed devices and the breakdown statistical distributions are in agreement with the formation of a single conductive path across the oxide formed by few oxide defects. Just two positively charged traps can give rise to a gate leakage comparable to those experimentally found, as evaluated by using a new original model of double trap-assisted tunneling (D-TAT) developed ad hoc.     

Study of the growth temperature dependence of performance andreliability of thin MOS gate oxides

An in-depth and systematic investigation is carried out to find the role of oxide growth temperature in determining the quality of the resulting gate oxide in MOS devices. Performance of fresh devices as well as degradation under hot-carrier stress and radiation exposure are studied using MOS capacitors and MOSFETs. Experimental results indicated that better charge trapping properties and interface endurance to both hot carrier-stress and ionizing radiation can be realized by elevating the gate oxidation temperature. Substantial experimental evidence is provided to establish that interface state generation during stress is mainly responsible for the degradation of various MOSFET parameters. These findings point out that rapid thermal processing may be the technique for the growth of ultrathin gate oxides for deep-submicrometer MOS technology, at least from the quality and reliability point of view     

Effect of plasma process-induced damage on bias temperature instability of MOSFETs

For a surface-channel n-MOSFET and a buried-channel p-MOSFET, the effect of plasma process-induced damage on bias temperature instability (BTI) was investigated. The gate oxide thickness, t_ox, of the test MOSFETs was 2.0, 3.0, or 4.5 nm. The shifts of threshold voltage V_th and of linear drain current I_dlin were measured after applying a BTI stress at a temperature of 125 °C. The measured shifts of V_th and I_dlin indicate that BTI on ultra-thin gate CMOS devices appears only in the form of SiO₂/Si interface degradation, and that the positive BTI for the n-MOSFET as well as the negative BTI for the p-MOSFET is important for the reliability evaluation of CMOS devices. Because of positive plasma charging to the gate, a protection diode was very efficient at reducing BTI for the p-MOSFET, but it was much less effective for the n-MOSFET.     

Snapback应力对90nm nMOSFET栅氧化层完整性的影响

基于测试对snapback应力引起的栅氧化层损伤特性和损伤位置进行了研究.研究发现应力期间产生的损伤引起器件特性随应力时间以近似幂指数的关系退化.应力产生的氧化层陷阱将会引起应力引起的泄漏电流增加,击穿电荷减少,也会造成关态漏泄漏电流的退化.栅氧化层损伤不仅在漏区一侧产生,而且也会在源区一侧产生.热空穴产生的三代电子在指向衬底的电场作用下向Si-SiO2界面移动,这解释了源区一侧栅氧化层损伤的产生原因.     

Snapback应力对90nm nMOSFET栅氧化层完整性的影响

基于测试对snapback应力引起的栅氧化层损伤特性和损伤位置进行了研究．研究发现应力期间产生的损伤引起器件特性随应力时间以近似幂指数的关系退化．应力产生的氧化层陷阱将会引起应力引起的泄漏电流增加，击穿电荷减少，也会造成关态漏泄漏电流的退化．栅氧化层损伤不仅在漏区一侧产生，而且也会在源区一侧产生．热空穴产生的三代电子在指向衬底的电场作用下向Si-SiO2界面移动，这解释了源区一侧栅氧化层损伤的产生原因．     

反应离子刻蚀铝中nMOS 器件的等离子充电损伤

介绍在等离子工艺中的等离子充电损伤,并且利用相应的反应离子刻蚀(RIE)Al的工艺试验来研究在nMOSFET器件中的性能退化。通过分析天线比(AR)从100:1到10000:1的nMOSFET器件的栅隧穿漏电流,阈值Vt漂移,亚阈值特性来研究由Al刻蚀工艺导致的损伤。试验结果表明在阈值Vt漂移中没有发现与天线尺寸相关的损伤,而在栅隧穿漏电流和低源漏电场下亚阈值特性中发现了不同天线比的nMOS器件有相应的等离子充电损伤。在现有的理解上对在RIEAl中nMOS器件等离子充电损伤进行了讨论,并且基于这次试验结果对减小等离子损伤提出了一些建议。