Silicon nitride trap properties as revealed by charge-centroid measurements on MNOS devices

Abstract

Previous charge-centroid studies of MNOS devices have shown that electrons injected into the insulator structure from the silicon are trapped not solely at the dielectric interface, but can be distributed over nearly the entire nitride thickness. In this paper, results of charge-centroid measurements on thin-oxide MNOS devices are interpreted with a charge trapping model, leading to values for the nitride trap density, capture cross section, and average trapping distance of 6×1018/cm3, 5×10-13 cm2, and 35 Å, respectively.