A comparative study of the on-off switching behavior of metal-insulator-metal antifuses

The on-state reliability of metal-insulator-metal antifuses based on aluminum nitride, silicon nitride, amorphous silicon, and tetrahedral amorphous carbon were investigated and compared. Among them, only the tetrahedral amorphous carbon antifuses show no spontaneous switching from the on-state to the off-state during operation. The unwanted switching was found to be associated with the presence of pinholes in the upper metal electrode of the antifuse. The percentages of silicon nitride and amorphous silicon antifuses with on-off switching were found to he greatly reduced after thermal annealing of the insulators. A failure mechanism of an antifuse resulting from thermal oxidation of its conductive link is proposed.