Thermal and plasma nitridation of Si and SiO/sub 2/ for ultrathin gate insulators of MOS VLSI

Thesis/Dissertation · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1986

OSTI ID:5136019

Moslehi, M M

The down-scaling of metal-oxide-semiconductor devices motivated by the continuing increase in the integration density of integrated circuits requires a substantial reduction in oxide thickness in the field-effect transistor gate, dynamic random-access memory storage capacitor, and nonvolatile-memory tunnel dielectrics. The technological and reliability problems associated with silicon dioxide (oxide) in the very thin regime emphasize the need for alternative high-quality insulators and new growth techniques. Silicon nitride, nitrided oxide (nitroxide), and oxidized nitride (oxynitride) grown by thermal and plasma nitridations are proposed as the best available alternatives. The new techniques include thermal nitridation in a lamp-heated system, and low-temperature microwave nitrogen-plasma nitridation. Knowledge of the growth kinetics and electrical characteristics of thin oxide is essential for the development of new dielectrics formed by subsequent processing of an initially grown oxide. The kinetics of the thermal nitridation of silicon and silicon dioxide in an ammonia ambient are analyzed. The electrical characteristics of metal-insulator-semiconductor devices with thermal silicon-nitride and nitroxide gate dielectrics are examined, and the results indicate the excellent electrical stability of the silicon-nitride devices because of very low carrier trapping.

• Research Organization: Stanford Univ., CA (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5136019
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
420800* -- Engineering-- Electronic Circuits & Devices-- (-1989)
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
990200 -- Mathematics & Computers
CHALCOGENIDES
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
ELECTRICAL INSULATORS
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
ELEMENTS
EQUIPMENT
INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
MICROELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
MIS TRANSISTORS
MOS TRANSISTORS
NITRIDES
NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PNICTIDES
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES
SEMIMETALS
SILICON
SILICON COMPOUNDS
SILICON NITRIDES
SILICON OXIDES
TRANSISTORS