New Insights Into Oxide Breakdown Current Partitioning Analysis for MOS Devices

Abstract

Oxide breakdown (BD) modeling may allow important reliability margin extension. Thus, BD characterization and understanding are strongly required to implement relevant models. In particular, BD position along the channel has been shown to be a relevant parameter for model extraction. However, the current partitioning methodology was limited to the first BD spot localization for a zero drain voltage. In this paper, we widely improve its application field and prove its usefulness for BD evolution study. Partitioning equations are corrected to be relevant at working voltages, which provides new understanding in BD impact on MOS devices.Index Terms-Dielectric breakdown (BD), failure analysis, lifetime estimation, semiconductor device modeling.