On July 1st, Toshiba Corporation's Semiconductor Company and Storage Products Company consolidated to form Semiconductor & Storage Products Company.This page describes reliability information of semiconductor products.

Gate Oxide Film Breakdown Analysis Using SEM

[As of April, 2011]

Purpose
Standby leakage failure during high-temperature operation product life test
Analysis and Result
Leakage (Figure 1) was confirmed between the gate electrode and substrate by removing the wiring connected to the gate electrode and employing a charge-up technique using SEM (Figure 2).
Furthermore, gate oxide film beakdown was observed after gate electrode removal (Figure 3).
Failure mechanism is the TDDB (Time Dependent Dielectric Breakdown) of oxide film.^{Note 1}

This is [Figure 1 Identification of Gate Oxide Film Breakdown Location Using SEM].

Figure 1 Identification of Gate Oxide Film Breakdown Location Using SEM ^{Note 2}

This is [Figure 2 Example of Identification of Gate Electrode with Leak between Gate Electrode and Substrate].

Figure 2 Example of Identification of Gate Electrode with Leak between Gate Electrode and Substrate

This is [Figure 3 Gate Oxide Film Breakdown Location].

Figure 3 Gate Oxide Film Breakdown Location

Note 1: Bibliography. Shibuya, Shinozaki: Identification of Gate Oxide Breakdown Site by Using Scanning Electron Microscope: International Symposium on Reliability and Maintainability, 1990, Tokyo

Note 2: Bibliography. Ryu: Electrical evaluation using AFP(Atomic Force Probe) and physical analysis for LSI devices