The outstanding properties of SiO2, which include high resistivity, excellent dielectric strength, a large band gap, a high melting point, and a native, low defect density interface with Si, are in large part responsible for enabling the microelectronics revolution. The Si/SiO2 interface, which forms the heart of the modern metal–oxide–semiconductor field effect transistor, the building block of the integrated circuit, is arguably the worlds most economically and technologically important materials interface. This article summarizes recent progress and current scientific understanding of ultrathin (<4 nm) SiO2 and Si–O–N (silicon oxynitride) gate dielectrics on Si based devices. We will emphasize an understanding of the limits of these gate dielectrics, i.e., how their continuously shrinking thickness, dictated by integrated circuit device scaling, results in physical and electrical property changes that impose limits on their usefulness. We observe, in conclusion, that although Si microelectronic devices...

Ultrathin (<4 nm) SiO2 and Si-O-N gate dielectric layers for silicon microelectronics: Understanding the processing, structure, and physical and electrical limits

This paper reviews recent progress in understanding microstructural and growth-mechanistic aspects of ultrathin (<4 nm) oxynitride films for gate dielectric applications. Different techniques for characterizing these films are summarized. We discuss several nitridation methods, including thermal (oxy)nitridation in NO, N2O, and N2 as well as a variety of deposition methods. We show that a basic understanding of the gas-phase and thin-film oxygen and nitrogen incorporation chemistries facilitates the processing of layered oxynitride nanostructures with desirable electrical properties.

Growth and characterization of ultrathin nitrided silicon oxide films

Effects of hydrogen transport and reactions on microelectronics radiation response and reliability

A process for growing an ultra-thin dielectric layer for use as a MOSFET gate oxide or a tunnel oxide for EEPROM's is described. A silicon oxynitride layer, with peaks in nitrogen concentration at the wafer-oxynitride interface and at the oxynitride surface and with low nitrogen concentration in the oxynitride bulk, is formed by a series of anneals in nitric oxide and nitrous oxide gas. This process provides precise thickness control, improved interface structure, low density of electron traps, and impedes dopant impurity diffusion from/to the dielectric and substrate. The process is easily integrated into existing manufacturing processes, and adds little increased costs.

Ultrathin oxynitride structure and process for VLSI applications

Stoichiometric, uniform, amorphous ZrO2 films with an equivalent oxide thickness of ∼1.5 nm and a dielectric constant of ∼18 were deposited by an atomic layer controlled deposition process on silicon for potential applications in metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) devices. The conduction mechanism is identified as Schottky emission at low electric fields and as Poole–Frenkel emission at high electric fields. The MOS devices showed low leakage current, small hysteresis (<50 mV), and low interface state density (∼2×1011 cm−2 eV−1). Microdiffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy showed a localized monoclinic phase of α-ZrO2 and an amorphous interfacial ZrSixOy layer which has a corresponding dielectric constant of 11.

Dielectric property and conduction mechanism of ultrathin zirconium oxide films

The impact of nitrogen (N) concentration and distribution on the electrical and reliability properties of rapid‐thermally NO‐annealed oxides is studied. The use of NO‐annealing of thermally grown SiO2 provides an excellent way to isolate the effects of N, since this method allows for the incorporation of varying N profiles in the oxide without a simultaneous increase in dielectric thickness. Results show that the electrical properties of the dielectric under gate and substrate Fowler–Nordheim injection are highly sensitive to the N profile in the dielectric. While interface endurance (ΔDit) is seen to improve monotonically with increasing N concentrations for both +Vg and −Vg, the same is not observed for charge‐to‐breakdown (QBD) properties. It is found that although QBD improves with NO nitridation under +Vg, it shows a turnaround behavior under −Vg, i.e., for a 10‐s NO‐annealed oxide the QBD value is improved over control oxide while further nitridation is seen to degrade QBD under −Vg. The presence of bulk N and the nonuniform N distribution in the dielectric is responsible for this behavior.

Effects of chemical composition on the electrical properties of NO‐nitrided SiO2

This paper reports on the performance and hot-carrier reliability of N- and P-channel MOSFET's with oxynitride gate dielectrics fabricated by rapid thermal nitridation of thermally grown SiO/sub 2/ in pure nitric oxide (NO) ambient. NO nitridation results in an increase in the nitrogen (N) incorporation in the dielectric without a significant increase in oxide thickness. High field electron mobility is found to increase with NO-nitridation while hole mobility is only slightly degraded. Hot-carrier reliability of both N- and P-channel MOSFETs is found to be significantly enhanced with increasing NO-nitridation. A 1000/spl deg/C, 10-second NO-anneal is found to be the optimum nitridation condition since, compared to control oxide devices, these devices showed comparable electron and hole mobility but significantly enhanced hot-carrier immunity. >

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel2/3058/8678/00383401.pdf

Performance and hot-carrier reliability of N- and P-MOSFETs with rapid thermally NO-nitrided SiO/sub 2/ gate dielectrics

Absfruct-In this paper, we demonstrate the superior diffusion barrier properties of NO-nitrided SiOn in suppressing boron penetration for p+-polysilicon gated MOS devices. Boron penetration effects have been studied in terms of flatband voltage shift, decrease in inversion capacitance (due to polysilicon depletion effect), impact on interface state density, and chargeto-breakdown. Results show that NO-nitrided SiOz, as compared to conventional thermal SiOz, exhibit much higher resistance to boron penetration, and therefore, are very attractive for surface channel PMOS technology.

Highly Suppressed Boron Penetration in NO-Nitrided Si02 for Gated MOS Device

High‐quality chemical vapor deposited (CVD) stacked oxynitride gate dielectrics have been fabricated by in situ rapid thermal multiprocessing. Bottom thin oxynitrides were formed by rapid thermal processing (RTP) of Si in nitric oxide (NO) or nitrous oxide (N2O) ambient, followed by rapid thermal chemical vapor deposition (RTCVD) of SiO2 films using SiH4 and N2O. The stacked dielectrics were then subjected to in situ rapid thermal annealing in an O2 ambient. Results show that CVD stacked oxynitride gate dielectrics have improved endurance to interface state degradation, higher charge to breakdown values, and significantly reduced defect densities compared to control thermal gate oxide.

Highly reliable chemical vapor deposited stacked oxynitride gate dielectrics fabricated by in situ rapid thermal multiprocessing

Frequent operation of SF6 circuit breaker for switching capacitor banks leads to radial loss and stress relaxation of arc contact, and contact degradation occurs, which seriously affects its performance and operating life. In order to study the influence of radial loss and stress relaxation on contact degradation of SF6 circuit breaker arc contact, this paper established a contact resistance model based on Holm theory, and obtained the relationship between radial loss and increase of contact resistance, then influence of arc contact stress relaxation on contact resistance was studied through theoretical calculations. Results show that contact resistance increases with the increase of radial loss of arc contact. When inrush current peak is 15kA, radial loss reaches 0.2366mm, and contact resistance increases by 54μΩ. At the same time, it is found that stress relaxation during long-term deformation will lead to a decrease in contact force. It is predicted that stress loss will be close to 40% of initial stress after 20 years, and stress relaxation will increase contact resistance by 50μΩ. 

Study on contact degradation of ARC contact of SF6 circuit breaker for reactive switching

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

J. Yan

Author Tools

Chat about Author