Gate oxide reliability for nano-scale CMOS

The reliability of the gate oxide in microelectronics, i.e., the ability of a thin film of this material to retain its excellent dielectric properties while subjected to high electric fields, has been a perennial concern over the last 40-45 years. Two dominant gate oxide failure mechanisms, dielectric breakdown and the negative bias instability, have continued to cause concern as MOSFET devices have scaled to nanometer dimensions. © 2006 IEEE.