Reliability assessment of thin gate oxides with a low level leakage current induced by plasma damage

Reliability stresses were performed to determine whether or not thin gate oxides with low level leakage currents induced by plasma charging damage can meet the gate oxide and hot electron reliability requirements. The low level gate oxide leakage currents are small so that they all pass the leakage fail criteria. The gate oxide degradation shows polarity, temperature, and gate material dependence, far worse for p-channel gate oxides. Degradation of gate oxides is much worse than hot electron degradation, and shows serious reliability risks which may limit gate oxide scaling.