Projecting gate oxide reliability and optimizing reliability screens

Abstract

The effect of time-dependent stress voltage and temperature on the reliability of thin SiO/sub 2/ films is incorporated in a quantitative defect-induced breakdown model. Based on this model, design curves which can be used along with a breakdown voltage distribution for an oxide technology to determine optimal burn-in conditions are presented. The tradeoff between improved reliability and lower burn-in yield for different gate oxide technologies can also be examined quantitatively using the model.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>