Abstract
The hot-electron and radiation hardnesses in metal-oxide-Si (MOS) capacitors are dramatically improved by the combination of a gate electrode deposited using amorphous Si and a gate oxide rapid thermal annealed in N 2 O. The charge-to-breakdown performance of MOS capacitors fabricated by this technique is excellent. The numbers of hot-electron and radiation induced interface traps are significantly reduced. The hardness improvement can be explained in terms of a mechanism based on an increase in compressive stress (macroscopic strain) in the oxide and relaxation of SiO 2 /Si interfacial strain.