Degradation of ultrathin oxides by iron contamination

Iron-contaminated oxides of metal-oxide-semiconductor devices were investigated to study gate oxide integrity (GOI) degradation dependence on oxide thickness for oxide thicknesses from 3 to 5 nm and iron densities from 4x10(10) to 1.4x10(12) cm(-3). In contrast to other publications, we show that oxides as thin as 3 nm show gate oxide integrity degradation, especially for the higher iron densities. But even for the low iron density we observe GOI degradation for all oxides. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.