Implications of progressive wear-out for lifetime extrapolation of ultra-thin (EOT ~ 1 mn) SiON films

Reliability extrapolation of ultrathin (EOT </spl sim/1.5nm) SiON films is greatly hindered by the inability to detect the actual first breakdown. Using larger increases in gate current as the breakdown criterion leads to erroneous lifetime predictions. A semi-empirical model for progressive breakdown wear-out is constructed and corrected methodology for reliability extrapolation for ultrathin oxides is proposed.