Stress-induced leakage currents of silicon oxides in flash EEPROM transistor

Abstract

In this paper, The stress induced leakage currents of thin silicon oxides is investigated in the ULSI implementation of FLash EEPROM transistor. The stress and transient currents associated with the on and off time of applied voltage were used to measure the distribution of high voltage stress induced traps in thin silicon oxide films. The stress and transient currents were due to the charging and discharging of traps generated by high stress voltage in the silicon oxides. The channel current for the thickness dependence of stress current, transient current, and stress induced leakage currents has been measured in oxides with thicknesses between 113.4A and 814A, which have the channel width x length 10 -3 cm 2 . The stress induced leakage currents will affect data retention and the stress current, transient current is used to estimate to fundamental limitations on oxide thicknesses.