We investigated the effects of low temperature (500℃) O2 annealing on the characteristics of hafnium silicate (HfSi(x)O(y)) films deposited on a Si substrate by atomic layer deposition (ALD). We found that the post deposition annealing under oxidizing ambient causes the oxidation of residual Hf metal components, resulting in the improvement of electrical characteristics such as flat band voltage shift (ΔV(fb)) by hysteresis without oxide capacitance reduction. We suggest that post deposition annealing under oxidizing ambient is necessary to improve the electrical characteristics of HfSi(x)O(y) films deposited by ALD.
