Present progress on theoretical studies of stability and electronic structures of silicon oxynitride thin film

Abstract

Recent progress of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology is remarkable and a lot of hot issues for science and technology have been published. Scaling down of the electronic devices is essential for their development but decreases their reliability. In such a small device, a dielectric thin film such as silicon dioxide is required to be the thickness of about 1 nm, and dielectric breakdown caused by leakage current is one of the serious problems. On the other hand, several methods are known to improve quality of the gate insulators. For example, nitridation of silicon dioxide is effective to suppress the leakage current and boron penetration, and employing high-k dielectrics is another way to decrease equivalent oxide thickness (EOT). In this article, nitridation process and dielectric properties of oxynitride thin film are especially focused on and reviewed by treating some important theoretical and experimental reports.