AbstractThis paper reports on the formation of high quality ultrathin oxynitride gate dielectric by in-situ rapid thermal multiprocessing. Four such gate dielectrics are discussed here; (i) in-situ NO-annealed SiO2, (ii) N2O- or NO- or O2-grown bottom oxide/RTCVD SiO2/thermal oxide, (iii) N2O-grown bottom oxide/Si3N4/N2O-oxide (ONO) and (iv) N2O-grown bottom oxide/RTCVD SiO2/N2O-oxide. Results show that capacitors with NO-based oxynitride gate dielectrics, stacked oxynitride gate dielectrics with varying quality of bottom oxide (O2/N2O/NO), and the ONO structures show high endurance to interface degradation, low defect-density and high charge-to-breakdown compared to thermal oxide. The N2O-last reoxidation step used in the stacked dielectrics and ONO structures is seen to suppress charge trapping and interface state generation under Fowler-Nordheim injection. The stacked oxynitride gate dielectrics also show excellent MOSFET performance in terms of transconductance and mobility. While the current drivability and mobilities are found to be comparable to thermal oxide for N-channel MOSFET's, the hot-carrier immunity of N-channel MOSFET's with the N2O-oxide/CVD-SiO2/N2O-oxide gate dielectrics is found to be significantly enhanced over that of conventional thermal oxide.
