Nitrided silicon dioxide layers for semiconductor integrated circuits

Abstract From the Canadian patent

Abstract, A semiconductor integrated circuit includes a nitrided silicon dioxide layer (32) typically 50 to 400 Angstroms thick located on a semiconductor medium. The nitrided layer is an original silicon dioxide layer (22) that has been nitrided at its top surface as by rapid, (flash) heating in ammonia to about 1250 degrees C in such, a way that the resulting nitrided silicon dioxide layer is essentially a compound layer of silicon nitroxide on silicon dioxide in which the atomic concentration fraction of nitrogen falls from a value greater than 0.13 at the top surface of the compound layer to a value of about 0.13 within 30 Angstroms or less beneath the top surface and, advantageously to …