In this paper, a model for describing tunneling from Si inversion layers is discussed. The model accounts for the quantization effects at the silicon/dielectric interface and is able to closely follow the self-consistent calculation of the potential and inversion charge in an inverted MOS structure. It is also applicable to multilayer gate stacks, since a general procedure is used for calculating the transmission through dielectric stacks. Influence of both material and geometrical parameters of a dual layer stack are discussed and scaling projections are inferred. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.