5 NM GATE OXIDE GROWN BY RAPID THERMAL-PROCESSING FOR FUTURE MOSFETS

Formation of 5-nm-thick SiO2film has been studied by rapid thermal processing (RTP). The SiO2/Si(100) interface of 5-nm RTP-grown SiO2film evaluated by high-resolution TEM is quite uniform, at least ordered within one or two atomic layers. The TDDB characteristics have indicated that short-time breakdown failure diminishes with decreasing oxide thickness, drastically below 6 nm in thickness. However, leakage current at low field, which is related to oxide wear-out, is observed in ultrathin RTP-SiO2film (6 nm). We have applied 5-nm-thick RTP-SiO2as a gate oxide of MOSFETs and obtained sufficient subthreshold and transconductance characteristics as device performance. © 1990 IOP Publishing Ltd.