Applications of the pulsed current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) techniques for high-resistive gates in MOSFETs

Most modern semiconductor laboratories are equipped with scanning electron or atomic force microscopes based nanoprobing systems for electrical measurement of advanced technology node devices. These nanoprobing systems use a scanning electron or an atomic force microscope in their design to image and make electrical connection to the nanoscale contacts on these devices to perform DC electrical tests and examine their electric properties. While the conventional sweep DC I-V curves can reveal most failures in MOSFETs (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistors), DC I-V tests have been found to be insufficient for identifying high-resistive gate faults. New techniques based on the pulsed I-V and high-frequency C-V measurements have been recently developed for detecting these high-resistive gate defects in these devices. In this paper, several test samples were manufactured and later measured using both the pulsed I-V and C-V methods to confirm their applicability. Finally, several real resistive gate device failure cases were examined using these same methods.