New approach to analyze the degradation and breakdown of thin SiO<inf>2</inf> films under static and dynamic electrical stress

A test procedure, which provokes the oxide breakdown in two stages, is proposed to analyze the degradation and breakdown of thin SiO2 films. This procedure can partially overcome the problems associated with dynamic tests and allows a direct comparison of static and dynamic stresses. The analysis of the data obtained using the proposed method has allowed us to conclude that the oxide breakdown is strongly affected by the degradation induced at the beginning of the test. This result provides a high sensibility to the method, helping it to study the oxide degradation under tests closer to operation conditions keeping reasonable testing times.