A study on soft- and hard-breakdowns in MOS capacitors using the parallel stressing method

In this paper, we propose a new experimental technique, namely the parallel stressing method to investigate the breakdown mechanism of MOS capacitors. The SILC characteristics of the region excluding the breakdown spot of a broken-down capacitor can be deduced, utilizing this method. It was shown that HBD as well as SBD takes place locally, as expected. Multiple SBD phenomena at different points on a capacitor have been verified. However, HBD has not occurred multiply, which is thought to be because of the decrease in stress intensity after the event.