AC hot-carrier effects in MOSFETs with furnace N/sub 2/O-nitrided gate oxides

AC hot-carrier effects in n-MOSFETs with thin ( approximately 85 AA) N/sub 2/O-nitrided gate oxides have been studied and compared with control devices with gate oxides grown in O/sub 2/. Results show that furnace N/sub 2/O-nitrided oxide devices exhibit significantly reduced AC-stress-induced degradation. In addition, they show weaker dependences of device degradation on applied gate pulse frequency and pulse width. Results suggest that the improved AC-hot-carrier immunity of the N/sub 2/O-nitrided oxide device may be due to the significantly suppressed interface state generation and neutral electron trap generation during stressing.<
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