Correlation between hot carrier stress, oxide breakdown and gate leakage current for monitoring plasma processing induced damage on gate oxide

In this paper, we compare the HC stress and oxide breakdown results with the fast and commonly used gate leakage current measurement A clear correlation is found between low levels of gate leakage and both HC degradation and oxide breakdown. We, for the first time, demonstrate that the value of the gate leakage current is not only a failure indicator in the region about 1 nA but also a good indicator of the reliability of the devices in the region between 1 pA and 1 nA. Thus, from the value of gate leakage current one can estimate the reliability of the devices, saving precious measurement time.