Detailed Study and Projection of Hard Breakdown Evolution in Ultra-Thin Gate Oxides

Published

February 28, 2005

Author(s)

John S. Suehle, Baozhong Zhu, Yuan Chen, J B. Bernstein

Abstract

The mechanism responsible for post soft-breakdown leakage current increase in ultra-thin oxides depends on the nature of the conducting filament formed at the instant of dielectric breakdown. The conductance of the filament formed during soft breakdown has been observed to be either stable until hard breakdown occurs or to continually increase with time. The acceleration factors for predicting hard breakdown are different in each case. Recent experimental results suggest that the 'hardness' of the first breakdown influences the type of conducting filament formed during the soft breakdown event the time in which hard breakdown subsequently occurs. Electron current-induced defect formation appears to be the driving force for the eventual hard breakdown event.

Citation

Microelectronics Reliability

Volume

45

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

Local Download

Keywords

reliability, silicon dioxide, dielectric breakdown, TDDB, CMOS

Citation

Suehle, J. , Zhu, B. , Chen, Y. and Bernstein, J. (2005), Detailed Study and Projection of Hard Breakdown Evolution in Ultra-Thin Gate Oxides, Microelectronics Reliability, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=31833 (Accessed October 25, 2025)