Identification of low density buried oxide conducting defects in SIMOX

The results of this work show that buried oxide (BOX) conducting defects in SIMOX wafers can be detected and spatially localized even in capacitors with areas approaching 1cm/sup 2/. The defects in this work were typically isolated to areas of about 2/spl mu/m/sup 2/. Preliminary cross-sectional TEM results show very little structural deformation of the BOX in the area of the conducting defects. To our knowledge, this is the first report of identification of naturally occurring BOX conducting defects in state-of-the-art SIMOX material. In addition, this analysis should reveal the cause of the conducting defects and accelerate their elimination.