Investigation Of Oxide Thickness Dependence Of Fowler-Nordheim Parameter B

Author

Shashank Bharadwaj, University of South Florida

Graduation Year

2004

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.S.E.E.

Degree Granting Department

Electrical Engineering

Major Professor

Dr. Yun Lee Chiou, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Dr. Wilfrido A. Moreno, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Dr. Christos Ferekides, Ph.D.

Keywords

I-V characteristics, C-V characteristics, NVM, tunneling, scaling

Abstract

During recent years the thickness of the gate oxide has been reduced considerably. The progressive miniaturization of devices has caused several phenomena to emerge such as quasi-breakdown, direct tunneling and stress induced leakage currents. Such phenomena significantly modify the performance of the scaled-down MOSFETs. As a part of this research work, an effort has been made to study the performance and characteristics of the thin Gate oxide for MOSFETs and Tunnel Oxide for Floating Gate (FG) MOS devices. The exponential dependence of tunnel current on the oxide-electric field causes some critical problems in process control. A very good process control is therefore required. This can be achieved by finding out the exact value of F-N tunneling parameter. This research work also is an effort of finding an accurate value for parameter B and its dependence on the oxide thickness as the device are scaled down to a level where the probability of Direct Tunneling mechanism gains more prominence.

A fully automated Low Current Measurement workstation with noise tolerance as low as 10^-15 A was set up as a part of this research. C-V and I-V curves were analyzed to extract, determine and investigate the oxide thickness dependence of F-N parameter B. For oxide thickness in the range10~13 nm, the parameter B ranged between 260 and 267. Thus it can be said that it is not sensitive to the change in oxide thickness in this range. However it was noticed that for thickness around 7nm wide variety of results were obtained for the Fowler-Nordheim parameter B (B ranged from 260 to 454). This can be attributed to the enhancement in the leakage current due to the direct tunneling. Hence to have tight control over V_T for a NVM, new algorithms need to be developed for even better process control for oxide thickness in the range of 7 nm and below.

Scholar Commons Citation

Bharadwaj, Shashank, "Investigation Of Oxide Thickness Dependence Of Fowler-Nordheim Parameter B" (2004). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/959