Yttrium oxide/silicon dioxide: A new dielectric structure for VLSI/ULSI circuits.

A new dielectric structure which consists of a thin layer of thermally oxidized Yttrium on Silicon with and without a thin intermediate SiO sub 2 layer bas been investigated as a high storage capacity insulator for Ultra Large Scale Integrated Circuits. This paper describes electrical characteristics of Al/Yttrium oxide (~200angstroms)/silicon dioxide (~40angstroms)/Si and Al/(~200angstroms) Yttrium oxide/Si structures. The Al/Y sub 2 O sub 3 /SiO sub 2 /Si (MYOS) and AlY sub 2 O sub 3 /Si (MYS) capacitors show very well behaved I-V characteristics with leakage current density 10 sup (-10) A/cm sup 2 at 5 volts. High frequency C-V and quasistatic C-V characteristics show very little hysteresis for bias ramp rate ranging from 10 mV/sec to 100 mV/sec.