Electron Beam Induced Damage of MOS Gate Oxide

Abstract

Threshold voltage (Vth) shift of a metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) system due to electron beam (EB) exposure can be expressed quantitatively as a function of the EB dosage which was derived easily as a solution of a differential equation based on the hole capturing model in the gate oxide. The theoretical model assumes two steps for hole capturing. First is the hole capturing by intrinsic hole traps leading to steep Vth shift with EB dosage at early exposure stages. The second is the hole capturing by newborn hole traps due to the EB injection, leading to a rather slow Vth variation at a higher EB dosage. The model shows good agreement with the experimental result over a wide range of electron beam dosages. Moreover, hole injection efficiency in the gate oxide is found to be higher for the third Aluminum interconnection layer exposure than for the first Al layer, corresponding to higher deposition energy around the gate oxide obtained by the Monte Carlo simulation result.