Yes, this is true.  It is sometimes referred to as "oxy-nitride."  It grows
as soon as you remove the wafers from the furnace or etch bath and there is
oxygen in the environment.  It is pretty stable at 1-2 nm, meaning, it won't
increase with time or temp.  It happened on every SiN structure I have seen
from 1kA to 10kA.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Qintao Zhang [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2003 8:14 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [mems-talk] native oxide layer on nitride?


I heard that there is a native oxide layer of 1-2 nm
on a silicon nitride layer. Is it true? In fact, I
also found some papers mentioning this. How does it
happen? Does this happen for any silicon nitride
layers? or just super thin nitride layers?

Thanks



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