Scalability of plasma damage with gate oxide thickness

The effect of decreasing gate oxide thickness on the susceptibility to pre-metallization plasma damage is investigated for the range of 40-80 Angstrom for both n and p type MOS capacitors. An antenna design, which intentionally uses an excessive number of contacts, has been used as a tool for excessive damage initiation to investigate the scalability of plasma damage with gate oxide thickness. Electrical reliability results indicate that susceptibility to damage increases with decreasing oxide thickness. Breakdown field was found to be an appropriate reliability criterion for comparing various oxide thicknesses.