Texas Instruments Corporation

Hewlett-packard Company

Paul K Aum

Hung-Kwei Hu

Warren M Uesato

Parkash S Arora

Kwang-Leei K Young

A method for testing thin gate oxide integrity of a semiconductor device includes the steps of performing a current or voltage ramp test on the thin gate oxide semiconductor device. The resultant current and voltage data points indicating an increasing magnitude of current flowing through the thin gate oxide and corresponding increasing magnitude of voltage across the thin gate oxide are measured and recorded (14, 16). A slope is then computed between each successive pair of data points and stored (20). Each successive pair of computed slopes are then compared against a predetermined setpoint (22), where a possible kink point is detected if a pair of successive computed slopes has a difference greater than the predetermined setpoint (24).

Method for testing semiconductor thin gate oxide

During the manufacture of a semiconductor integrated circuit, contact holes or passages are formed through a non-planar insulating layer resulting from the deposition of dielectric over electrical contacts having differing profile heights from the surface of an internal layer, such as a substrate, to expose these contacts and/or provide electrical connections thereto. The passages are formed with a combination of sloped and vertical sidewall portions in which varying depth sloped portions are used to effectively planarize the dielectric layer and permit the vertical sidewall portions to have substantially identical vertical dimensions. This technique simultaneously exposes contacts with varying profile heights which thereby reduces contact damage. In addition, this technique effectively planarizes the dielectric layer, reducing the need for an additional planarization step.

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Paul K Aum