Analysis of evolution to and beyond quasi-breakdown in ultra-thin oxide and oxynitride

The wearout and eventual failure of ultra-thin dielectrics have been of great interest since these dielectrics are critical in the reliability and performance of the state of the art CMOS technologies. This paper presents detailed analysis of transistors with 30 /spl Aring/ (measured by ellipsometry) oxide and oxynitride dielectrics as they evolve to and beyond quasi-breakdown due to FN stresses. Subsequent anneals and stresses were also performed to simulate the effects of further processing.