The performance and reliability of 0.4 micron MOSFET's with gate oxynitrides grown by rapid thermal processing using mixtures of N/sub 2/O and O/sub 2/

We studied the effect of interfacial nitrogen concentration on device characteristics with gate oxynitrides grown from mixtures of N/sub 2/O and O/sub 2/ by rapid thermal processing. The performance and reliability of MOS capacitors fabricated by a four mask process and MOSFET's fabricated by a 0.4 /spl mu/m twin-well process were examined. No degradation of the current drive of n- and p-MOSFET's in the linear and the saturation region was observed due to oxynitridation. The reliability of gate dielectrics represented by charge-to-breakdown for substrate injection and hot carrier immunity of n-MOSFET's is improved with increasing interfacial nitrogen concentration.<
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