A COMPARISON BETWEEN PLASMA CHARGING-DAMAGE AND INDUCTIVE-DAMAGE - DAMAGE RESPONSE TO FOWLER-NORDHEIM STRESS

This paper reports on the results of a study performed to compare the effects of charging damage and inductive damage to 0.5 mu m n-channel MOSFETs arising from plasma etching at the gate-definition etch and me tal 1 etch levels, respectively. The MOSFETs were fabricated on 200 mm p/p(+) silicon wafers using a full CMOS process. The gate-definition etch step was performed using a chlorine-based chemistry and the metal etch step was done using a BCl3/N-2/Cl-2 plasma. It is found that cha rging damage is electrically inactive after the full CMOS process flow ; however, it is electrically activated by Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) stres s when charging damage is clearly seen to correlate with the area of c harging antenna in the device. Inductive damage, on the other hand, is seen to impact transistor parameters directly after the CMOS process and before the application of F-N stress. This is attributed to distin ctly different mechanisms that are responsible for the creation of the two types of damage: charging damage arises from a de current stress, whereas inductive damage is suggested to arise from ac current stress . Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd