Study of thin gate oxides grown in an ultra-dry/clean triple-wall oxidation furnace system

A triple-wall oxidation furnace system has been designed and implemented successfully. This paper explains the system in detail and discusses the reliability of the gate oxides grown in such a system. The 9.3 nm gate oxides display an improved dielectric breakdown field strength (15 MV/cm), and charge-to-breakdown (45C/cm²) with less interface trap generation than the gate oxides grown in a conventional single-wall oxidation system. From these results, we conclude the microscopic defects as well as the macroscopic defects are better controlled in a triple-wall oxidation system than in a conventional single-wall oxidation system. This new system permits the study of the Si-SiO₂ interface with a control on the number of electronic defects inherent in the processing of MOS devices.