Effects of N/sub 2/O anneal and reoxidation on thermal oxide characteristics

Abstract

The effects of post-oxidation N/sub 2/O anneal on conventional thermal oxide are studied. The oxide thickness increase resulting from N/sub 2/O anneal is found to be self-limiting and insensitive to initial oxide thickness, which makes the thickness of the resulting oxide easy to control. The N/sub 2/O anneal leads to increased resistance against injection-induced interface-state generation and to reduced hole trapping. No further quality improvement is found when the N/sub 2/O-annealed oxide is subject to an additional reoxidation. This finding confirms that nitrogen incorporation in the absence of hydrogen is responsible for improving the quality of the conventional oxides.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>