Polarity dependence of degradation in ultra thin oxide and JVD nitride gate dielectrics

We have studied high field degradation of Jet Vapor Deposited (JVD) silicon nitride MNSFETs with DC stress fields and compared their degradation with conventional silicon dioxide MOSFETs under identical stress conditions. We have observed that in both oxide and nitride devices, the interface degradation is higher for negative gate field. Further, the relative degradation of nitrides is always lower compared to that of oxides for both positive and negative stress conditions. AC stress experiments were performed on these ultra thin oxide transistors to understand possible degradation processes. The frequency, the peak-to-peak and offset voltage of the applied AC signal are some of the parameters that have been varied. Detailed characterization results and an analysis of the degradation mechanisms are presented in this paper. We conclude that many of the degradation results can be explained using the trapped hole recombination model