Superior damage-immunity of thin oxides thermally grown on reactive-ion-etched silicon surface in N/sub 2/O ambient

Thin oxides thermally grown on reactive-ion-etched silicon surfaces in N/sub 2/O ambient have been studied. As compared with pure oxides grown on the etched silicon in dry oxygen, N/sub 2/O-grown oxides exhibit significantly stronger immunity to the RIE-induced damages. A great improvement in both time-zero-dielectric-breakdown (TZDB) and time-dependent-breakdown (TDDB) characteristics is observed for the N/sub 2/O-grown oxides on RIE-treated silicon surfaces. Accelerated tests have shown that the N/sub 2/O oxide grown on the RIE silicon surface can achieve a lifetime longer than the pure oxide grown on the correspondingly etched silicon surface with a factor over 10/sup 8/.<
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