Plasma induced damage from HDP process on the ultra-thin gate oxide

In general, as the gate oxide thickness scales down, plasma damage is reduced. In this paper, we show that, for a gate oxide thickness of 45 /spl Aring/, the plasma damage due to charging could still be severe, and that the damage may be induced by high-density plasma deposition in the back-end process of device fabrication rather than the traditional dry-etching process.