电压应力下超薄栅氧化层n-MOSFET的击穿特性

研究了90nm工艺下栅氧化层厚度为1.4nm的n-MOSFET的击穿特性，包括V-ramp(斜坡电压)应力下器件栅电流模型和CVS(恒定电压应力)下的TDDB(经时击穿)特性，分析了电压应力下器件的失效和退化机理.发现器件的栅电流不是由单一的隧穿引起，同时还有电子的翻越和渗透.在电压应力下，SiO₂中形成的缺陷不仅降低了SiO₂的势垒高度，而且等效减小了SiO₂的厚度(势垒宽度).另外，每一个缺陷都会形成一个导电通道，这些导电通道的形成增大了栅电流，导致器件性能的退化，同时栅击穿时间变长. 关键词： 超薄栅氧化层 斜坡电压 经时击穿 渗透     

Correlation between Si-SiO2 heterojunction and Fowler-Nordheim conduction mechanism after soft breakdown in ultrathin oxides

A stress-induced defect band model is proposed to investigate the Fowler-Nordheim tunneling characteristics of ultrathin gate oxides after soft breakdown. Soft breakdown occurs when the average distance between stress-induced defects locally reaches a critical value to overlap the bound electron wavefunction on adjacent defects and to form a defect band. This model shows that an n⁺-poly-Si/N-SiO₂/p-Si heterojunction structure is formed between electrodes at a local area after a soft breakdown in the ultrathin SiO₂ and the soft breakdown current can be described in terms of the Fowler-Nordheim tunneling process with a barrier height of ∼1 eV.     

Valence band electron tunneling in metal-oxide-silicon structures

Experimental results are presented for the substrate current appearing in thin oxide metal-oxide-silicon capacitors with a shallow n/p junction beneath the gate when a positive gate voltage in the tunneling regime is applied. The analysis of the current-voltage characteristics shows that for an oxide voltage drop lower than about 5 V the substrate current is due to electron tunneling from the silicon valence band. The dispersion relation in the energy range extending 3 eV below the oxide conduction band is determined from the voltage dependence of the current in the direct tunneling regime. An effective mass of about 0.8m_e is found near the edge of the oxide conduction band, while for lower energies a strong decrease of the effective mass is observed.     

薄栅氧化层经时击穿的实验分析及物理模型研究

通过衬底热载流子注入技术,对薄SiO₂层击穿特性进行了研究.与通常的F-N应力实验相比较,热载流子导致的薄栅氧化层击穿显示了不同的击穿特性.通过计算注入到氧化层中的电子能量和硅衬底的电场的关系表明,热电子注入和F-N隧穿的不同可以用氧化层中电子的平均能量来解释.热空穴注入的实验结果表明薄栅氧化层的击穿不仅由注入的空穴数量决定.提出了全新的热载流子增强的薄栅氧化层经时击穿模型 关键词： 薄栅氧化层 经时击穿 衬底热载流子 击穿电荷 模型     

超薄栅氧化层n-MOSFET软击穿后的导电机制

研究了恒压应力下超薄栅氧化层n型金属-氧化物-半导体场效应晶体管（n-MOSFET）软击穿 后的导电机制.发现在一定的栅电压V_g范围内，软击穿后的栅电流I_g符合Fowl er-Nordheim隧穿公式，但室温下隧穿势垒_b的平均值仅为0936eV，远小于S i/Si O₂界面的势垒高度315eV.研究表明，软击穿后，处于Si/SiO₂界 面量子化能级上的 电子不隧穿到氧化层的导带，而是隧穿到氧化层内的缺陷带上._b与缺陷带能 级和电 子所处的量子能级相关；高温下，激发态电子对隧穿电流贡献的增大导致_b逐 渐降低. 关键词： 软击穿 栅电流 类Fowler-Nordheim隧穿 超薄栅氧化层     

γ射线总剂量辐照对单轴应变Si纳米n型金属氧化物半导体场效应晶体管栅隧穿电流的影响

基于γ射线辐照条件下单轴应变Si纳米n型金属氧化物半导体场效应晶体管(NMOSFET)载流子的微观输运机制,揭示了单轴应变Si纳米NMOSFET器件电学特性随总剂量辐照的变化规律,同时基于量子机制建立了小尺寸单轴应变Si NMOSFET在γ射线辐照条件下的栅隧穿电流模型,应用Matlab对该模型进行了数值模拟仿真,探究了总剂量、器件几何结构参数、材料物理参数等对栅隧穿电流的影响.此外,通过实验进行对比,该模型仿真结果和总剂量辐照实验测试结果基本符合,从而验证了模型的可行性.本文所建模型为研究纳米级单轴应变Si NMOSFET应变集成器件可靠性及电路的应用提供了有价值的理论指导与实践基础.     

薄栅氧化层经时击穿的参数表征研究

在恒压应力条件下测试了薄栅氧化层的击穿特性,研究了TDDB的击穿机理,讨论了栅氧化层面积对击穿特性的影响.对击穿电荷Q_BD进行了实验测试和分析,结果表明：击穿电荷Q_BD不是常数,它依赖栅氧化层面积和栅电压.对相关系数进行了拟合,给出了Q_BD的解析表达式. 关键词：     

小尺寸应变Si金属氧化物半导体场效应晶体管栅隧穿电流预测模型

小尺寸金属氧化物半导体场效应晶体管(MOSFET)器件由于具有超薄的氧化层、关态栅隧穿漏电流的存在严重地影响了器件的性能,应变硅MOSFET器件也存在同样的问题.为了说明漏电流对新型应变硅器件性能的影响,文中利用积分方法从准二维表面势分析开始,提出了小尺寸应变硅MOSFET栅隧穿电流的理论预测模型,并在此基础上使用二维器件仿真软件ISE进行了仔细的比对研究,定量分析了在不同栅压、栅氧化层厚度下MOSFET器件的性能.仿真结果很好地与理论分析相符合,为超大规模集成电路的设计提供了有价值的参考. 关键词： 应变硅 准二维表面势 栅隧穿电流 预测模型     

Direct tunneling current model for MOS devices with ultra-thin gate oxide including quantization effect and polysilicon depletion effect

An efficient direct tunneling current model is presented for the ultra thin gate dielectric MOS structure. The tunneling current is modeled by including the inversion layer quantization effect with a finite potential barrier height as the boundary condition and the modified WKB method for calculating the transmission probability. The model is in good agreement with the full quantum calculation and the experiments. The results indicate that the finite boundary condition has to be considered for the ultra thin gate dielectric and the gate dielectric materials with lower barrier height. This model is accuracy and computational efficient and suitable to be used in characterized the sub-100 nm MOSFET with gate oxide below 2.0 nm.     

Investigating the effects of the interface defects on the gate leakage current in MOSFETs

The effects of the interface defects on the gate leakage current have been numerically modeled. The results demonstrate that the shallow and deep traps have different effects on the dependence relation of the stress-induced leakage current on the oxide electric field in the regime of direct tunneling, whereas both traps keep the same dependence relation in the regime of Fowler-Nordheim tunneling. The results also shows that the stress-induced leakage current will be the largest at a moderate oxide voltage for the electron interface traps but it increases with the decreasing oxide voltage for the hole interface traps. The results illustrate that the stress-induced leakage current strongly depends on the location of the electron interface traps but it weakly depends on the location of the hole interface traps. The increase in the gate leakage current caused by the electron interface traps can predict the increase, then decrease in the stress-induced leakage current, with decreasing oxide thickness, which is observed experimentally. And the electron interface trap level will have a large effect on the peak height and position.     

Degradation of Ultra-Thin Gate Oxide NMOSFETs under CVDT and SHE Stresses

Degradation of device under substrate hot-electron (SHE) and constant voltage direct-tunnelling (CVDT)stresses are studied using NMOSFET with 1.4- nm gate oxides. The degradation of device parameters and the degradation of the stress induced leakage current (SILC) under these two stresses are reported. The emphasis of this paper is on SILC and breakdown of ultra-thin-gate-oxide under these two stresses. SILC increases with stress time and several soft breakdown events occur during direct-tunnelling (DT) stress. During SHE stress, SILC firstly decreases with stress time and suddenly jumps to a high level, and no soft breakdown event is observed. For DT injection, the positive hole trapped in the oxide and hole direct-tunnelling play important roles in the breakdown. For SHE injection, it is because injected hot electrons accelerate the formation of defects and these defects formed by hot electrons induce breakdown.     

The electrical characteristics of a 4H-silicon carbide metal-insulator-semiconductor structure with Al2O3 as the gate dielectric

A 4H-silicon carbide metal-insulator-semiconductor structure with ultra-thin Al₂O₃ as the gate dielectric, deposited by atomic layer deposition on the epitaxial layer of a 4H-SiC (0001) 8⁰N-/N+ substrate, has been fabricated. The experimental results indicate that the prepared ultra-thin Al₂O₃ gate dielectric exhibits good physical and electrical characteristics, including a high breakdown electrical field of 25 MV/cm, excellent interface properties (1×10¹⁴ cm^-2) and low gate-leakage current (I_G = 1 × 10^-3 A/cm^-2@E_ox = 8 MV/cm). Analysis of the current conduction mechanism on the deposited Al₂O₃ gate dielectric was also systematically performed. The confirmed conduction mechanisms consisted of Fowler-Nordheim (FN) tunneling, the Frenkel-Poole mechanism, direct tunneling and Schottky emission, and the dominant current conduction mechanism depends on the applied electrical field. When the gate leakage current mechanism is dominated by FN tunneling, the barrier height of SiC/Al₂O₃ is 1.4 eV, which can meet the requirements of silicon carbide metal-insulator-semiconductor transistor devices.     

Influence of Si/SiO2 interface properties on electrical performance and breakdown characteristics of ultrathin stacked oxide/nitride dielectric films

In this work, the influence of Si/SiO₂ interface properties, interface nitridation and remote-plasma-assisted oxidation (RPAO) thickness (<1 nm), on electrical performance and TDDB characteristics of sub-2 nm stacked oxide/nitride gate dielectrics has been investigated using a constant voltage stress (CVS). It is demonstrated that interfacial plasma nitridation improves the breakdown and electrical characteristics. In the case of PMOSFETs stressed in accumulation, interface nitridation suppresses the hole traps at the Si/SiO₂ interface evidenced by less negative V_t shifts. Interface nitridation also retards hole tunneling between the gate and drain, resulting in reduced off-state drain leakage. In addition, the RPAO thickness of stacked gate dielectrics shows a profound effect in device performance and TDDB reliability. Also, it is demonstrated that TDDB characteristics are improved for both PMOS and NMOS devices with the 0.6 nm-RPAO layer using Weibull analysis. The maximum operating voltage is projected to be improved by 0.3 V difference for a 10-year lifetime. However, physical breakdown mechanism and effective defect radius during stress appear to be independent of RPAO thickness from the observation of the Weibull slopes. A correlation between trap generation and dielectric thickness changes based on the C-V distortion and oxide thinning model is presented to clarify the trapping behavior in the RPAO and bulk nitride layer during CVS stress.     

Characteristics of high-quality HfSiON gate dielectric prepared by physical vapour deposition

This paper presents a method using simple physical vapour deposition to form high-quality hafnium silicon oxynitride (HfSiON) on ultrathin SiO₂ buffer layer. The gate dielectric with 10? (1?= 0.1 nm) equivalent oxide thickness is obtained. The experimental results indicate that the prepared HfSiON gate dielectric exhibits good physical and electrical characteristics, including very good thermal stability up to 1000℃, excellent interface properties, high dielectric constant (k=14) and low gate-leakage current (I_g=1.9×10^-3A/cm² @V_g=V_fb-1V for EOT of 10?). TaN metal gate electrode is integrated with the HfSiON gate dielectric.The effective work function of TaN on HfSiON is 4.3eV, meeting the requirements of NMOS for the metal gate. And, the impacts of sputtering ambient and annealing temperature on the electrical properties of HfSiON gate dielectric are investigated.     

Gate dielectrics for ultimate CMOS technologies – Limitations and alternative solutions

For nowadays CMOS technologies, the gate oxide thickness has reached a few nanometer range and will be lower than 2 nm for sub-0.1 μ m generations. This scaling of the gate dielectric thickness favors the onset of physical phenomena such as gate polysilicon depletion or quantum effects that limit the MOS device performance in terms of capacitance and leakage current. Moreover, these ultra thin oxide MOS structures are prone to new degradation processes that could reduce their operation lifetime. In this paper, the major limitations raised by the scaling of the gate dielectrics in CMOS technologies are briefly reviewed in terms of MOS capacitance, reliability and new materials issues. More specifically, we first focus on the limitations raised by physical phenomena inherent to MOS capacitors such as polysilicon depletion and quantum effects (carrier confinement and tunneling), impacting their performances. We then address the limitations related to the reliability concerns such as wearout, breakdown, quasi-breakdown, stress-induced leakage current, determining the device lifetime. Finally, the new materials currently envisaged, as replacement solutions in order to overcoming the difficulties due to the gate oxide scaling will be discussed. In particular, the possible solutions based on alternate high permittivity gate dielectrics and metallic gate materials will be emphasized.     

Influence of high energy electron irradiation on the characteristics of polysilicon thin film transistors

The influence of high energy electron (23 MeV) irradiation on the electrical characteristics of p-channel polysilicon thin film transistors (PSTFTs) was studied. The channel 220 nm thick LPCVD (low pressure chemical vapor deposition) deposited polysilicon layer was phosphorus doped by ion implantation. A 45 nm thick, thermally grown, SiO2 layer served as gate dielectric. A self-alignment technology for boron doping of the source and drain regions was used. 200 nm thick polysilicon film was deposited as a gate electrode. The obtained p-channel PSTFTs were irradiated with different high energy electron doses. Leakage currents through the gate oxide and transfer characteristics of the transistors were measured. A software model describing the field enhancement and the non-uniform current distribution at textured polysilicon/oxide interface was developed. In order to assess the irradiation-stimulated changes of gate oxide parameters the gate oxide tunneling conduction and transistor characteristics were studied. At MeV dose of 6×10¹³ el/cm², a negligible degradation of the transistor properties was found. A significant deterioration of the electrical properties of PSTFTs at MeV irradiation dose of 3×10¹⁴ el/cm² was observed.     

Physics of fluctuation processes in downscaled silicon MOSFETs

Physical mechanics of fluctuation processes in advanced submicron and decananometer MOSFETs (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors) including the ultra-thin film SOI (siliconon-insulator) devices using strained silicon films are reviewed. The review is substantially based on the results obtained by the authors. It is shown that the following drastic changes occur in the nature and parameters of noise in such devices as a result of their downscaling when the gate oxide thickness and the channel length and width are decreased, the SOI substrates are used, the silicon film thickness is reduced, the film doping level is varied, the strained silicon films are employed, etc. Firstly, the Lorentzian components can appear in the current noise spectra. Those components are due to (i) electron tunneling from the valence band through the gate oxide in the SOI MOSFETs of a sufficiently thin gate oxide (LKE-Lorentzians); (ii) Nyquist fluctuations generated in the source and drain regions near the back Si/SiO₂ interface in the SOI MOSFETs (BGI Lorentzians); (iii) electron exchange between the channel and some single trap in the gate oxide of the transistors with sufficiently small length and width of the channel (RTS Lorentzians). Secondly, the 1/f-noise level can increase due to (i) the appearance of recombination processes near the Si/SiO₂ interface activated by the currents of electron tunneling from the valence band; (ii) an increase in the trap density in the gate oxide of the devices fabricated on the biaxially tensile-strained silicon films; (iii) the contribution of the 1/f fluctuations of the current flowing through the gate oxide as a result of electron tunneling from the conduction band. At the same time, the 1/f-noise level may decrease due to a decrease in the trap density in the gate oxide of the transistors fabricated on the uniaxially tensile-strained silicon films. Moreover, a 1/f ^1.7 component may appear in the noise spectra for the transistors of a sufficiently thin gate oxide, whose component is due to charge fluctuations on the defects located near the interface between the gate polysilicon and the gate oxide.     

Hydrogen-release mechanisms in the breakdown of thin SiO2 films

The mechanism of hydrogen release from the anode Si/SiO(2) interface that triggers defect generation and finally the dielectric breakdown of the oxide in metal-oxide-semiconductor structures is investigated. Extensive experimental charge-to-breakdown statistics are used to derive the defect generation efficiency as a function of gate voltage and oxide thickness in wide ranges. The presented results provide strong support to single-electron assisted Si-H bond breakage and discard multiple electron induced incoherent vibrational heating mechanisms.     

部分耗尽结构绝缘体上硅器件的低频噪声特性

针对部分耗尽结构绝缘体上硅(silicon-on-insulator, SOI)器件低频噪声特性展开实验与理论研究. 实验结果表明, 器件低频噪声主要来源于SiO₂-Si界面附近缺陷态对载流子的俘获与释放过程; 基于此理论可提取前栅和背栅氧化层界面附近缺陷态密度分别为8×10¹⁷ eV^-1·cm^-3和2.76×10¹⁷ eV^-1·cm^-3. 基于电荷隧穿机理, 在考虑隧穿削弱因子、隧穿距离与时间常数之间关系的基础上, 提取了前、背栅氧化层内缺陷态密度随空间的分布情况. 此外, SOI器件沟道电流归一化噪声功率谱密度随沟道长度的增加而线性减小, 这表明器件低频噪声主要来源于沟道的闪烁噪声. 最后, 基于电荷耦合效应, 分析了背栅电压对前栅阈值电压、沟道电流以及沟道电流噪声功率谱密度的影响.     

小尺寸MOSFET隧穿电流解析模型

基于表面势解析模型，通过将多子带等效为单子带，建立了耗尽/反型状态下小尺寸MOSFET直接隧穿栅电流解析模型.模拟结果与自洽解及实验结果均符合较好，表明此模型不仅可用于SiO₂、也可用于高介电常数(k)材料作为栅介质以及叠层栅介质结构MOSFET栅极漏电特性的模拟分析，计算时间较自洽解方法大大缩短，适用于MOS器件电路模拟. 关键词： 隧穿电流 MOSFET 量子机理 解析模型