A thorough investigation of progressive breakdown in ultra-thin oxides. Physical understanding and application for industrial reliability assessment
This paper provides a close investigation of the gate oxide failure for thickness below 24/spl Aring/. At first, the failure detection is discussed showing that its manifestation is not catastrophic any more. Then, the wear-out beginning at the failure occurrence is studied. It highlights the path conduction aging whose progressiveness is found to be mainly gate voltage driven. At last, progressiveness dynamics is investigated and a methodology is developed to rigorously relax the reliability criterion following applications.