Electrical characteristics of oxynitrides grown on textured single-crystal silicon

Abstract

The electrical characteristics of oxynitrides grown on textured single-crystal silicon are discussed in this letter. This study compares the I-V, C-V, charge trapping, interface state generation, and breakdown characteristics of this new gate dielectric with those of oxides and oxynitrides grown on untextured silicon, and oxides grown on textured silicon. Textured oxynitrides were found to have enhanced conduction and significantly reduced interface state generation. Furthermore, they exhibit an improved immunity to charge trapping under high-field stress, and a significantly higher charge-to-breakdown QBD compared to the textured oxides. These properties make the textured oxynitride a promising gate dielectric for applications in electrical-erasable programmable read-only memories (EEPROMs).