The Secret of the Leakage Current Mechanism in Some Historical Device-Quality High-K Metal-Insulator-Metal Capacitors

The leakage current mechanism of high-k metal-insulator- metal (MIM) capacitor has been controversial and seems to be some sort of secret. In this paper, a unified Ohmic-Schottky- Poole-Frenkel (O-SPF) theory will be presented. In addition, the effect of charge trapping can be important. The author tried to demonstrate his theory for 15 nm Ta <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> O <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">5</inf> and 5 nm HfO <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> MIM capacitors.