Nature of traps responsible for failure of MOS devices

A failure of chips in a huge amount of modern electronic devices is connected as a rule with the undesirable capturing of charge (electrons and holes) by traps in a thin insulating film of silicon oxide in transistors. It leads to a breakdown of transistors or to a destructive change of their characteristics. It is suggested that silicon oxide will be replaced in the next generation of nanoscale devices by silicon oxynitride. Therefore, it is very important to understand the nature of traps in this material. We discuss this nature using the quantum-chemical simulation.