Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
In this paper, a detailed reliability investigation is presented for ultra-thin tunneling (∼50 Å) oxides grown in N2O ambient using rapid thermal processing (RTP). These N2Oss-oxides are compared with oxides of identical thickness grown in O2 ambient by RTP. The reliability investigations include time-dependent dielectric breakdown as well as stress-induced leakage current in MOS capacitors with these gate dielectrics. Results show that ultra-thin N2O-oxides show much improved reliability as compared to oxide grown in O2 ambient.