RAPID THERMAL POST-METALLIZATION ANNEALING EFFECT ON THIN GATE OXIDES

Rapid thermal processing is used for post-metallization annealing (PMA ) in this work. It was found that the rapid thermal PMA can do almost the same anneal work in the initial characteristics of MOS capacitors with an oxide thickness of 10 nm as the conventional furnace PMP;. But the reliabilities in hot-carrier and radiation resistances of MOS cap acitors depend on the PMA process significantly. It was found that rap id thermal PMA samples exhibit worse properties in hot-carrier resista nce but better properties in radiation hardness than furnace PMA sampl es. For rapid thermal PMA process, the higher the annealing temperatur e, the stronger the initial annealing extent but the worse the hot-car rier and the radiation resistances.