High-temperature rapid thermal nitridation of silicon dioxide for future VLSI applications

The use of nitrided SiO
2
for very large scale integration (VLSI) applications is becoming increasingly attractive. Nitridation can convert a thin surface region of SiO
2
into a nitroxide film which is a diffusion barrier that allows the use of thin dielectrics in MOS structures and a variety of gate metals without contaminating the interfacial region. We propose a two-activation-energy model of nitridation and suggest a structure for MOS gate insulator applications. We achieved this structure using rapid thermal nitridation at 1300°C for 20 s in 1 atm. of ammonia.