Assessing the reliability of silicon nitride capacitors in a GaAs IC process

A method is presented for predicting the lifetime of silicon nitride (SiN) capacitors for different voltages and temperatures. The method builds on techniques used for analyzing Si MOS capacitors. Measuring breakdown voltages at different ramp rates and temperatures allows fast on-wafer determination of the field (/spl gamma/) and temperature (Ea) acceleration parameters. Three different types of SiN were studied and were found to have similar values of /spl gamma/ and Ea, however intrinsic lifetimes varied by orders of magnitude.