Gate Leakage vs. NBTI in Plasma Nitrided Oxides: Characterization, Physical Principles, and Optimization

Since nitrided oxides improve gate leakage at the expense of NBTI, one must optimize nitrogen concentration in oxinitride samples for reliable performance and reduced power dissipation. Here, we analyze wide range of NBTI stress data to develop a predictive model for gate leakage and first self-consistent model for field acceleration within R-D framework. This model anticipates a novel design diagram for co-optimization of leakage and NBTI for arbitrary nitrogen concentration and effective oxide thickness