Impact of process-induced damage on MOSFET reliability and suppression of damage by the use of NO-based oxynitride gate dielectrics

Conventional SiO/sub 2/ gate oxide is found to show enhanced degradation due to cumulative plasma-induced damages as processed through back-end. However, an alternate oxynitride gate dielectric, namely, NO-nitrided SiO/sub 2/, demonstrates excellent immunity to plasma charging. It is observed that compared to SiO/sub 2/, NO-nitrided oxides show suppressed dependence of damage on charging collection area. A systematic study of effects of NO-anneal condition on the degree of resistance to charging shows that even minimal thermal budgets are capable of producing high quality gate oxides.