Impacts of process induced interfacial defects on gate oxide integrity

In this work, voltage ramp dielectric breakdown (VRDB), time dependent dielectric breakdown, (TDDB) and bias temperature instability (BTI) were conducted to evaluate the impacts of process induced interfacial defects on GOI. It is found that process induced defects near the gate oxide edges by poor adhesion of photo resist resulted in severe effective thinning; and defects near oxide interfaces by various process steps led to the degradation of voltage acceleration factor (VAF), which is likely related to nitrogen enhanced anode hydrogen release (AHR).