This paper discusses the development of a low temperature gate oxide deposition process using remote plasma chemical vapor deposition which, unlike other plasma-assisted gate oxide deposition processes, does not require a preoxidation step, a significant limitation of those processes. An important factor in the development of this process was the discovery that the background water concentration in the deposition chamber plays a crucial role in determining the electrical properties of the oxide films. A likely mechanism is proposed for this effect. It is shown that by carefully controlling the background water concentration, it is possible to develop a process which does not require preoxidation, while yielding films whose electrical properties are comparable to those reported for other processes and, in the case of some parameters, comparable to the properties of furnace-grown oxides. The process has been verified to be scalable down to at least 30 Angstrom.