Temperature, field and technological dependences of thin oxide breakdown characteristics

Abstract The influence of the temperature, the applied field, and the process on the breakdown parameters of very thin oxides used in representative CMOS technologies is studied. Particularly, three temperature ranges with different activation energies are demonstrated, although the correlation between the bulk oxide trapped charge and the breakdown vs temperature is shown. The two main well-known quantitative models for breakdown are applied and discussed. The great importance of the oxidation step is shown, but the influence of the substrate is also proved. A law describing the evolution of the field acceleration factor vs oxide thickness at high fields is given. Throughout this study, some limitations for the estimation of the oxide reliability are reported.