Low temperature recovery of Ru/(Ba,Sr)TiO3/Ru capacitors degraded by forming gas annealing

A low temperature N-2 post-annealing process was proposed to improve the degradation of Ru/(Ba, Sr)TiO3/Ru capacitors due to forming gas annealing. After N-2 post-annealing at 300 degrees C, the leakage current degraded by forming gas annealing was completely recovered to the initial level without affecting the SiO2 equivalent thickness of 0.51 nm. No degradation of the subthreshold characteristics of n-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors and N+P junction leakage current by the post-annealing was also confirmed. The Ru/(Ba, Sr)TiO3/Ru capacitor technology with this post-annealing process is suitable for dynamic random access memories in 0.13 mu m generation and beyond.