High quality ultra-thin (2.4 nm) oxide prepared by clustered vertical furnace with in-situ HF-vapor pre-gate oxide cleaning

In this paper, we grow and characterize in detail native-oxide-free ultra-thin gate oxide (T/sub ox/=2.4 nm) by an advance clustered vertical furnace with in-situ HF-vapor stripping of the native oxide. Excellent results are demonstrated. Gate oxide integrity is significantly improved in terms of leakage, time-to-breakdown, breakdown field, interface-state-density, stress-induced leakage current, I/sub d/, and G/sub m/. In-situ HF-vapor cleaning by a clustered vertical furnace therefore appears to be very promising to grow high-quality native-oxide-free gate oxide for future deep-submicron device application.