We have investigated the annealing effects of HfO2 films deposited by an atomic layer deposition (ALD) method on the electrical and physical properties in the Si/SiO2/Pt/ALD-HfO2/Pd metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors. If the annealing temperature for HfO2 films was restricted below 500 degrees C, an annealing step using a rapid thermal processor (RTP) improves the electrical properties such as the dissipation factor and the dielectric constant. On the other hand, annealing at 700 degrees C degrades the electrical characteristics in general; the dissipation factor increases over the frequency range of 1 similar to 4 MHz, and the leakage current increases up to 2 orders at the low electric field regions. We found that the degradation of electrical properties is due to the grain growth in the HfO2 film (i.e., poly-crystallization of the film) by the high temperature annealing processing. We suggested that the annealing temperature must be restricted below 500 degrees C to obtain the high quality high-k film for the MIM capacitors. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.