THE TRANSIENT NATURE OF EXCESS LOW-LEVEL LEAKAGE CURRENTS IN THIN OXIDES

Excess high voltage stress-induced low-level leakage currents through thin silicon oxides, previously described as de currents, are shown to decay to zero given adequate observation time and, thus, have no de c omponent. The amount of increase in the low-level pretunneling current through a thin oxide is shown to be dependent on the voltage sweep ra te used to make the measurement. A model is presented which describes the excess low-level leakage currents in terms of the charging and dis charging of traps previously generated by the high voltage stresses. E nergy band diagrams are used to illustrate the model.