Electron trapping and oxide trap generation have been studied in polycrystalline‐Si gate metal‐oxide‐semiconductor (metal‐SiO2‐Si) capacitors in which F was introduced into the SiO2layer by implantation into the Si gate followed by a drive‐in process. Three key findings are presented: (i) consistent with previous reports, the fluorinated SiO2/Si interface becomes more resistant to ionizing radiation or hot‐electron damage; (ii) the incorporation of fluorine introduces electron traps with a small capture cross section of approximately 1×10−18cm2; and (iii) the presence of F suppresses the generation of new oxide traps under high‐field hot‐electron injection. Possible explanations are discussed.