Thickness and stress polarity effects on the reliability of the low thermal budget polyoixdes

Abstract

In this paper, the thickness and the stress polarity effects on the reliability of the low thermal budget polyoxides are investigated. The polyoxides are prepared by two methods: the low-temperature tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) polyoxide deposition and in the rapid thermal chamber in N2O ambient (RTN2O). It is observed that the thinner TEOS polyoxides exhibit higher charge to breakdown (Q(bd)) and larger stress polarity effect than those of the thicker TEOS polyoxides. However, for the RTN2O grown polyoxides from 8.5 nm to 12.9 run, they have the similar values of the Qbd and the stress polarity effects, The nitrogen atoms incorporated in the RTN2O grown polyoxides may be the reason to this less thickness dependence of the Q(bd). Higher barrier height is also observed for the RTN2O grown polyoxides than that of the deposited TEOS polyoxide to obtain a lower tunneling current under a fixed electric field.