Analysis and Modelling of the Soft Breakdown Current fluctuations

In this work we have investigated the fluctuations of the gate current after the onset of the oxide Soft Breakdown (SB). Two fluctuation types affect the SB current: (a) transitions between two or more “metastable” current levels; (b) small current fluctuations within each current level. In a previous work [1] we investigated the large type-(a) transitions. In the present work we have studied the small current fluctuations, i.e. type-(b), mainly focused on the intrinsic instability of the SB conductance. Moreover we have modelled such fluctuations by taking in account such instability