Highly reliable thin nitrided SiO ₂ films formed by rapid thermal processing in an N ₂ O ambient

Abstract

Nitridation of a thin SiO2 film has been achieved by rapid thermal processing (RTP) using only O2 and N2O as reactants. In comparison with pure SiO2 film, nitrided SiO2 (SiOxNy,) film (8 nm), which includes about 5 at% nitrogen at the SiOxNy/Si interface, showed a large charge-to-breakdown value greater than 30C/cm2 and a density of electron traps lower than that of SiO2 in high-field stressing (>8 MV/cm) under the condition of gate negatively biased.