Charge to breakdown reduction after electric stress is observed after heavy ion irradiation at two energies exhibiting a similar LET value. An enhanced degradation of the oxide layer reliability is observed at low energy.

Alpha particles are one of the main sources of soft errors at ground level due to radioactive impurities found in electronic materials. In this paper, based on the radioactive decay laws, we identify radioactive nuclides that may enhance the alpha disintegration rate when secular equilibrium is not reached.

Alpha-particle emissivity at wafer-level has been analytically modeled for material layers contaminated by uranium and/or thorium impurities. Our approach evaluates the number (or the fraction) of escaping alpha particles from any monolayer or multilayer of arbitrary material composition. The global emissivity of the (stacked) material and its corresponding alpha-particle energy spectrum can be also analytically derived. The model has been fully validated with Monte Carlo simulation in terms of alpha-particle emissivity and energy spectra for different layer thicknesses and detection threshold energies. Finally, we propose a general nomogram for silicon material directly giving the alpha-particle emissivity versus the silicon contamination level expressed in ppb of uranium and thorium.

238U and 232Th and their relative daughters are impurity sources responsible for soft errors induced by alpha particles. In this paper, the contribution of each decay chain to the alpha emission rate is evaluated by assuming that secular equilibrium is reached. We show that for the same concentration of uranium and thorium in secular equilibrium, uranium decay chain has an alpha emission rate (AER) two times higher than the thorium decay chain. Furthermore, the contribution of these two decay chains to the Soft Error Rate (SER) and Multiple Cell Upset (MCU) is calculated for a 90 nm and a 65 nm CMOS technology by Monte Carlo simulations by considering a concentration of thorium 1.33 higher than uranium in secular equilibrium condition, which is representative to measurements found in literature. We show in these conditions that uranium has a contribution to the SER and MCU higher than that of thorium.

Soft errors have become increasingly problematic in newer CMOS technologies. The integration of new elements from the periodic table, due to transistor miniaturization, introduces different properties (physical, chemical, mechanical, etc…) but natural radioactivity has so far not been considered. The new materials could increase the soft error rate, if the materials are natural radiation emitters. In this paper, the risk of integrating new materials, such as samarium and platinum, is studied by eva-luating the soft error rate of a 32 nm technology based on Monte Carlo simulations.

We propose a method to model the wet etch process within the Shallow Trench Isolation (STI) module in the CMOS technology. To model a process is the first step in the design of a run to run system, in order to reduce for example the lot to lot variability (a lot equals 25 wafers). The developed predictive model is based on a Design Of Experiments (DOE).

Charge to breakdown reduction after electric stress is observed after heavy ion irradiation at two energies exhibiting a similar LET value. An enhanced degradation of the oxide layer reliability is observed at low energy.

Soft errors have become increasingly problematic in newer CMOS technologies. The integration of new elements from the periodic table, due to transistor miniaturization, introduces different properties (physical, chemical, mechanical, etc...) but natural radioactivity has so far not been considered. The new materials could increase the soft error rate, if the materials are natural radiation emitters. In this paper, the risk of integrating new materials, such as samarium and platinum, is studied by eva-luating the soft error rate of a 32 nm technology based on Monte Carlo simulations.

In order to face downscaling, new chemical elements are used and suggested for the semiconductor industry. However, some of these elements have natural radioactive isotopes, which may cause reliability issues in nanoelectronic devices by triggering soft errors. In this paper, we focus on high-κ dielectric materials and metal gates. We show that besides physical, chemical and mechanical properties of high-κ dielectrics and metal gates, natural radioactivity is also a crucial property to be considered in order to select suitable materials. Using samarium in gate oxides and platinum in electrodes turns out to be a crucial issue for ground level applications.

At ground level, alpha particles are a major source of soft errors. They may result from radioactive isotopes found in electronic device materials. In this paper, the materials' contributions to alpha particle-induced Soft Error Rate (SER) and MCU are evaluated for a 65 nm CMOS technology. The trend of SER on 45 and 32 nm is also reported in this paper. These evaluations are performed by Monte Carlo simulations, taking into account the radioactive impurity contamination levels in the device.

The role of all natural alpha emitters on the soft-error rate of integrated circuits is quantified. The impact of seven materials is given in FIT per mass unit. For instance, platinum has an isotope that is a natural alpha emitter, which may increase the Soft Error Rate up to 53 FIT/ng. Moreover, secular equilibrium of uranium is simulated by a Monte Carlo method. Only 90 parts per trillion of uranium is enough to explain the emissivity of wafers. Simulations show the trends of the alpha SER with scaling from the 250 nm technology node down to the 90 nm node. The contribution of alpha particles emitted by impurities to the SER is shown to become more important as the feature size decreases.