Improvement in reliability of n-MOSFETs by using rapid thermal N 2O-reoxidized nitrided gate oxides

Abstract

Instead of oxygen, pure N 2O gas was used as the reoxidizer for rapid thermal reoxidized nitrided oxide in this work. The performance of n-MOSFETs with this new gate dielectric is dramatically improved in both the radiation-hardness and channel-hot-carrier stress when compared with those with pure O 2-grown and O 2-reoxidized nitrided oxides. Higher mobility is observed for the n-MOSFETs with N 2O-reoxidized nitrided oxides in both the high field and low field regions. These improvements are attributed to the additional nitridation effect during the N 2O reoxidation process, which will incorporate more nitrogen at the SiO 2/Si interface.