Characterization of antenna effect by nondestructive gate current measurement

A novel method is proposed for the effective characterization of plasma-charge-induced damage on thin gate oxides. We have found that the gate current measured at V_g(gate voltage) = V_th (threshold voltage) under a low drain bias (e.g., 0.1 V) is a good indicator of the damage. Since the proposed method requires only low bias voltages, it does not cause additional damage to the devices. The proposed gate current measurement is also easy to incorporate to device measurement routines without an extra stressing step, and thus provides a simple and efficient damage indicator for studying plasma-charge-induced damage.