ABSTRACT
One of the biggest challenges currently facing the semiconductor industry is the need to replace Si02, or SiON, as the gate oxide in complementary-metal-oxide-silicon (CMOS) devices. As these devices are scaled, all components within the gate stack are reduced in size. In state of the art devices, the Si02 thickness is - 1.2nm and further reduction will lead to a rapid increase of the tunnelling current and hence unacceptable leakage current in the device.
