Electrical and Reliability Studies of "Wet $N_2O$" Tunnel Oxides Grown on Silicon for Flash Memory Applications

Babu, Naseer P and Govind, G and Prasad, SMS and Bhat, KN (2007) Electrical and Reliability Studies of "Wet $N_2O$" Tunnel Oxides Grown on Silicon for Flash Memory Applications. In: IEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability, 7 (3). pp. 420-428.

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Abstract

In this paper, we report the electrical characteristics and reliability studies on tunnel oxides fabricated by "wet $N_2O$" oxidation of silicon in an ambient of water vapor and $N_2O$ at a furnace temperature of $800^oC$. Tunnel oxides that have an equivalent oxide thickness of $67 \AA$ are subjected to a constant-current stress (CCS) amount of $-100 mA/cm^2$ using a MOS capacitor to obtain information on stress-induced leakage current (SILC), interface, and bulk trap generation. The obtained results clearly demonstrate the superior performance features of the present tunnel oxides with reduced SILC, lower trap generation, minimum change in gate voltage, and higher charge-tobreakdown during CCS studies. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy depth profile studies of the tunnel oxide interfaces have shown that the improved performance characteristics and reliability can be attributed to the incorporation of about 8.5% nitrogen at the oxide–silicon interface of the samples formed by the "wet $N_2O$" process that involves low-temperature oxidation and annealing at $800^oC$.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	IEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability
Publisher:	IEEE
Additional Information:	Copyright 2000 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.
Keywords:	Charge-to-breakdown;interface traps;stressinduced leakage current (SILC);wet N2O oxidation.
Department/Centre:	Division of Electrical Sciences > Electrical Communication Engineering
Date Deposited:	26 Aug 2008
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:49
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/15662

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