TLM: a trench leakage monitor for a four megabit SPT DRAMtechnology

The authors discuss a single trench capacitor macro-array structure used for trench dynamic random access memory (DRAM) device design and characterization, and as a manufacturing test vehicle. A nonaddressable array of trench-capacitor DRAM cells is used for quantification of trench DRAM leakage parameters, storage node parasitic device characterization, and silicon defects. Used with an addressable functional monitor, it is found to be a valuable semiconductor process development vehicle to achieve functionality and cell retention yield for a 4-Mb CMOS DRAM technology