Abstract
To reduce the boron penetration and improve the Fowler-Nordheim (FN) stress hardness simultaneously in metal-oxide-Si (MOS) capacitors, a gate oxide should be formed in O 2 by a furnace and then rapid-thermal-annealed in N2O. The boron penetration is significantly reduced by a gate oxide formed in N 2 O in a furnace while its FN stress hardness is quite poor. The suppression of boron penetration for the oxynitride can be attributed to the nitrogen incorporation into the gate oxide. The improvement of FN stress hardness could be explained in terms of a mechanism based on a relaxation of the SiO 2 /Si interfacial strain. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.