Degradation of ultrathin oxides by iron contamination

Iron-contaminated oxides of metal-oxide-semiconductor devices were investigated to study gate oxide integrity (GOI) degradation dependence on oxide thickness for oxide thicknesses from 3 to 5 nm and iron densities from 4×1010 to 1.4×1012 cm−3. In contrast to other publications, we show that oxides as thin as 3 nm show gate oxide integrity degradation, especially for the higher iron densities. But even for the low iron density we observe GOI degradation for all oxides.