0167-9317/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.mee.2007.04.063 www.elsevier.com/locate/mee Microelectronic Engineering 84 (2007) 1956–1959 Systematic characterization of soft- and hard-breakdown spots using techniques with nanometer resolution M. Porti a,* , S. Gerardin b , M. Nafría a , X. Aymerich b , A. Cester b , A. Paccagnella b , P. Schiavuta c , R. Pierobon c a Dept. Eng. Electrònica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain b DEI Università di Padova, Padova, Italy c CIVEN (Coordinamento Interuniversitario Veneto per le Nanotecnologie), Venezia, Italy Abstract In this work, different Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) related techniques have been used to completely characterize soft- and hard-breakdown spots of SiO 2 gate oxides. In particular, C-AFM (Conductive AFM), SCM (Scanning Capacitance Microscopy) and KPFM (Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy) were used to study the propagation, conduction and the electrical damage of previously broken down gate oxide areas. The results show that the combination of these techniques allows a complete and systematic study of the BD phenomenology at the nanoscale. Keywords: AFM, oxide reliability, breakdown 1. Introduction Since dielectric breakdown (BD) is an extremely local phenomenon that takes place in areas of few hundreds of nm 2 , techniques with a nanometer resolution are required to investigate it in detail. In this direction, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) related techniques have been demonstrated to be very useful tools to study ultra-thin gate oxides of MOS Corresponding author. Tel.:+ 34935813526; fax: +34935812600. E-mail address: marc.porti@uab.cat (M. Porti) devices. C-AFM (Conductive-AFM) has been recently used to investigate the electrical properties and reliability of fresh and electrically stressed gate oxide layers (SiO 2 and high-k dielectrics) [1-5]. On the other hand, SCM (Scanning Capacitance Microscopy) and KPFM (Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy) have been shown to be able to detect the presence of charge on interface states [6] or semiconductor nanoislands embedded in the gate oxide [7]. However, few works have been devoted to estimate the electrical damage of a BD spot with SCM and KPFM [8, 9]. In this paper, a systematic study of BD events induced on MOS devices will be performed by combining C-AFM, SCM and KPFM.