Reliable fluorinated thin gate oxides prepared by liquid phase deposition following rapid thermal process

A reliable fluorinated thin gate oxide prepared by liquid phase deposition (LPD) following rapid thermal oxidation (RTO) in O/sub 2/ or nitridation (RTN) in N/sub 2/O ambient was reported. Fluorine (F) atoms incorporated into the oxides during LPD process are found to be helpful to the improvement of oxide quality. It is observed that these fluorinated gate oxides show good properties in radiation hardness, charge to breakdown (Q/sub bd/), and oxide breakdown field (E/sub ox/) endurances. Interestingly, the Q/sub bd/'s for the fluorinated gate oxides are 10 times larger than those for the gate oxides prepared by RTO in O/sub 2/ or RTN in N/sub 2/O directly. Some of the E/sub ox/'s are even higher than 17 MV/cm for the samples investigated in this work.