Using Injection-Thermal Treatment to Reduce Defectiveness of Dielectric Films of MIS Structures

Abstract

Injection-thermal treatment (ITT) of MIS structures in the mode of stepwise increase in high-field injection current density bounded by the value of J_b, at which no noticeable processes of irreversible charge degradation of the gate dielectric and its interface with the semiconductor occur, is under consideration. The charge density injected into the gate dielectric during ITT should provide the revealing of samples with external defects. It is established that injection-thermal treatment allows one to significantly reduce the density of external defects in the dielectric film of MIS structures and exclude most of the samples with a small charge injected until the breakdown. It is shown that, after injection-thermal treatment, the reliability of MIS structures and devices based on them is determined mainly by internal defects of the dielectric film; this significantly improves the reliability indicators of MIS devices.