Atomic Scale Defects Involved in MOS Reliability Problems

Although imperfect and incomplete, a fundamental understanding of many of the atomic scale defects involved in important MOS reliability problems now exists. This understanding comes primarily from electron spin resonance (ESR) and statistical mechanics. I'll introduce both (ESR) and statistical mechanics and discuss the most important defects.

P.M. Lenahan

P.M. Lenahan earned the B.S. from the University of Notre Dame and the Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. After completing the Ph.D. (1979), he was a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University in 1979 and 1980. From 1980-1985 he was a member of the technical staff and a solid state physicist in the Materials Research Directorate of Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, NM. Since 1985 he has been at Penn State University where he is Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics. The Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics is the materials engineering and applied physics department of the Penn State Engineering College; the department also operates an honors degree program for engineering students interested in applied physics. In 2001, he was visiting professor of Electronics and Computer Engineering at Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan. Since 2000, he has also served as associate editor of the Journal of Electronic Materials. Patrick Lenahan has authored over 120 publications, approximately 140 conference presentations, and one patent. For nearly twenty years, his research has been primarily focused upon the trapping centers in amorphous SiO2, nitrogen, phosphorous, and boron “doped” SiO2, silicon nitrides, silicon oxynitrides, Si/SiO2 interfaces, and silicon grain boundaries with a variety of electrical measurements and electron spin resonance techniques. He and his students have developed spin dependent recombination systems which have allowed very sensitive electron spin resonance measurements of low defect densities in individual sub-micron metal oxide silicon transistors in integrated circuits.