Plastic Pollution
Microelectronics Reliability 49 (2009) 1309–1314
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Microelectronics Reliability journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/microrel
Dielectric charging in silicon nitride films for MEMS capacitive switches: Effect of film thickness and deposition conditions
U. Zaghloul a,b,*, G. Papaioannou c, F. Coccetti a, P. Pons a, R. Plana a,b a CNRS, LAAS, 7 avenue du Colonel Roche, F-31077 Toulouse, France Université de Toulouse; UPS, INSA, INP, ISAE; LAAS; F-31077 Toulouse, France c Solid State Physics Section, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis Zografos, Athens 15784, Greece b a r t i c l e
i n f o
a b s t r a c t
The paper presents a systematic investigation of the dielectric charging and discharging process in silicon nitride thin films for RF-MEMS capacitive switches. The SiN films were deposited with high frequency (HF) and low frequency (LF) PECVD method and with different thicknesses. Metal–Insulator–Metal capacitors have been chosen as test structures while the Charge/Discharge Current Transient method has been used to monitor the current transients. The investigation reveals that in LF material the stored charge increases with the film thickness while in HF one it is not affected by the film thickness. The dependence of stored charge on electric field intensity was found to follow a Poole–Frenkel like law. Finally, both the relaxation time and the stored charge were found to increase with the electric field intensity. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Article history: Received 30 June 2009 Available online 12 August 2009
1. Introduction Capacitive RF-MEMS switches are one of the most pioneering microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices for wireless applications. This is mainly due to their very high isolation, extremely low insertion loss and near-zero power consumption. In spite of this, their commercialization is still hindered by reliability problems nonetheless the studies on the
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Microelectronics Reliability journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/microrel
Dielectric charging in silicon nitride films for MEMS capacitive switches: Effect of film thickness and deposition conditions
U. Zaghloul a,b,*, G. Papaioannou c, F. Coccetti a, P. Pons a, R. Plana a,b a CNRS, LAAS, 7 avenue du Colonel Roche, F-31077 Toulouse, France Université de Toulouse; UPS, INSA, INP, ISAE; LAAS; F-31077 Toulouse, France c Solid State Physics Section, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis Zografos, Athens 15784, Greece b a r t i c l e
i n f o
a b s t r a c t
The paper presents a systematic investigation of the dielectric charging and discharging process in silicon nitride thin films for RF-MEMS capacitive switches. The SiN films were deposited with high frequency (HF) and low frequency (LF) PECVD method and with different thicknesses. Metal–Insulator–Metal capacitors have been chosen as test structures while the Charge/Discharge Current Transient method has been used to monitor the current transients. The investigation reveals that in LF material the stored charge increases with the film thickness while in HF one it is not affected by the film thickness. The dependence of stored charge on electric field intensity was found to follow a Poole–Frenkel like law. Finally, both the relaxation time and the stored charge were found to increase with the electric field intensity. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Article history: Received 30 June 2009 Available online 12 August 2009
1. Introduction Capacitive RF-MEMS switches are one of the most pioneering microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices for wireless applications. This is mainly due to their very high isolation, extremely low insertion loss and near-zero power consumption. In spite of this, their commercialization is still hindered by reliability problems nonetheless the studies on the