Reliability driven guideline for BEOL Optimization: Protecting MOS stacks from hydrogen related impurity penetration
This paper reviews our recent experiments that correlate the F N stress induced gate dielectric degradation with the hydrogen related (H) species permeability of the liner nitride (SiN) film. The H permeability of SiN films was found to depend on the deposition process and the post deposition treatment. A specific ultrathin oxynitride in the near surface region of N2 annealed SiN films was discovered, which has the potential to function as an H diffusion barrier. Adopting SiN films that effectively block the H related impurity penetration is a promising route to improve the reliability of dielectrics film applied for FLASH memories.
2012 IEEE International Conference on IC Design Technology