Dependence of post-breakdown conduction on gate oxide thickness

We have studied the post-breakdown (BD) conduction of gate oxides with thickness in the range between 1.8 and 2.5 nm. Soft post-BD I-V characteristics are generally found. In the studied range stress voltage and gate geometry play a marginal role in the level of post-BD leakage. On the contrary an increase of one order of magnitude in post-BD conduction is found under the same conditions of post-BD injected charge for an oxide thickness decrease of about 7 A. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.