RELIABILITY ISSUES IN SUBMICRON MOSFETS WITH OXYNITRIDE GATE DIELECTRICS

A review of critical reliability issues in submicron MOSFETs with oxyn itride gate dielectrics is presented. We have focussed our attention o n: substrate and gate currents in short channel MOSFETs, hot carrier i nduced MOSFET degradation under DC and AC stress, gate-induced drain l eakage current and its enhancement due to stress, neutral trap generat ion due to electrical stress and degradation of analog MOSFET paramete rs. We have also discussed the problems of radiation induced neutral t rap generation and boron penetration through the gate dielectric, whic h arise due to the advanced processing techniques utilized in submicro n MOSFET processing. It is concluded that the use of oxynitride gate d ielectrics can effectively solve several reliability issues encountere d in scaling down MOSFETs to submicron dimensions.