A study of soft and hard breakdown - Part II: Principles of area, thickness, and voltage scaling

For Part I see ibid., vol.49, no.2, pp.232-8 (2002). Based on the theory of soft and hard breakdown established in Part I of this paper, we now study the principles of area, thickness, voltage, and circuit configuration dependence of hard and soft breakdown. These scaling principles allow us to conclude that breakdown in ultrathin oxides stressed at operating voltages (1.0-1.5 V) can never be hard, which should allow a more relaxed reliability specification for these oxides.