Electric breakdowns and breakdown mechanisms in ultra-thin silicon oxides

摘要

It was found that the breakdown times meaured using time-dependent-dielectric-breakdown (TDDB) distributions could be shifted to shorter times when the amount of energy available during the breakdown event was increased. The TDDB ditrbiutiosn were non-unique and bu0012reakdwon models must account for both electrical breakdwons and dielectric breakdwn. A novel approach for obtaining breakdwon distributios will be presented. This approach uses a small number of oxides of oxides to obtain a time-dependent-electric-breakdown (TDEB) distribution, which will be shown to provide complementary information ot that obtained from (TDDB) distrbiutons. While the observation of dielectric breakdown in ultra-thin dielectrics may be difficult using standard test conditions, it will be shown that electric breakdowns are relatively easy to observe.