Explanation of stress-induced damage in thin oxides

Abstract

This work presents a physically-based model for anode hole injection which explains both the voltage polarity asymmetry and sub-threshold behavior of Fowler-Nordheim (FN) stress generated oxide damage down to low V/sub G/. Also, we have developed an n-well bias technique for PFETs which clearly establishes that this FN stress-induced damage is due to anode hole injection.