Reliability issues of silicon-dioxide structures—Application to FLOTOX EEPROM cells

Abstract The reliability issues of tunnel MOS capacitors after Fowler-Nordheim stress are deeply investigated. The techniques currently available for estimating the degradation of the devices are reviewed. Several tunnel oxide technologies are compared with respect to the reliability performance. Besides, the impact of the tunnel oxide technology on the reliability performance of FLOTOX EEPROM cells is discussed extensively. Finally, novel quantitative physical models which correlate the quality of the tunnel oxide technology with the reliability aspects of FLOTOX EEPROM cells are presented.