Evaluation of Plasma Charging Damage in Ultrathin Gate Oxides

Abstract-Monitoring of plasma charging damage in ultrathin oxides (e.g., <4 nm) is essential to understand its impact on device reliability. However, it is observed that the shift of several device parameters, including threshold voltage, transconductance, and subthreshold swing, are not sensitive to plasma charging and thus not suitable for this purpose. Consequently, some destructive methods, such as the charge-to-breakdown measurement, are necessary to evaluate plasma damage in the ultrathin oxides. Index Terms-Dielectric breakdown, plasma materialsprocessing applications, semiconductor device reliability