Low-field latent plasma damage depassivation in thin-oxide MOS
01 August 2000
A novel plasma-process induced damage depassivation method is proposed. Using a staircase-like stress voltage and varying the stress time, we were able to depassivate the latent damage at very low-field on both nMOS and pMOS devices. The dynamic of the interface traps generation is studied; pMOS devices show a peculiar behavior, which can be explained understanding the mechanisms involved in damage depassivation. The energy of carriers is identified as the damaging factor. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.