Reduced hot-electron effects in MOSFET's with an optimized LDD Structure

A comparison of device degradation due to hot-electron injection is made for conventional MOSFET's and lightly doped drain (LDD) structures. The studies indicate that, for an optimized LDD structure, critical device parameters, such as threshold voltage, transconductance, and linear and saturated current drives, show significantly reduced degradation when subjected to accelerated life testing. These results imply long-term stability for LDD devices used in VLSI circuits.     

A new model for device degradation in low-temperature N-channel polycrystalline silicon TFTs under AC stress

Enhanced device degradation of low-temperature n-channel polycrystalline thin-film transistors (poly-silicon TFTs) under exposure to ac stress has been quantitatively analyzed. This analysis showed that degradation of the device characteristics of a single-drain (SD) TFT is greater under ac stress than under dc stress over an equivalent period. It was found that hot holes are strongly related to this greater severity of degradation. Moreover, a lightly doped drain (LDD) TFT is less strongly affected, and the effect is dominated by accumulated drain-avalanche hot-carrier (DAHC) stress. It was also found that differences between the electric field in the respective channel regions are responsible for the different degradation properties of SD and LDD TFTs. It was shown that the severe degradation under ac stress in an SD TFT is caused by increased DAHC stress, to which electrons emitted from the trap states when the TFT is turned off make significant contributions.     

Degradation Characteristics of n- and p-Channel Polycrystalline-Silicon TFTs Under CMOS Inverter Operation

The degradation characteristics of n- and p-channel polysilicon thin-film transistors (TFTs) under circuit operation were investigated by using CMOS inverter circuits consisting of n-channel TFTs with a lightly doped drain (LDD) structure and p-channel TFTs with a single-drain (SD) structure. A new test element made it possible to separately evaluate the degradation characteristics of each type of TFT during CMOS inverter operation. In regard to n-channel LDD TFTs, the device degradation is mainly caused by accumulated dc stress under the condition that the gate voltage is near the threshold voltage and the high drain voltage, i.e., the drain-avalanche hot-carrier (DAHC) stress condition. In p-channel SD TFTs, the device degradation is caused by the mutual interaction between DAHC stress and negative-bias-temperature (NBT) stress. Hole injection due to NBT stress is accelerated by DAHC-stress-induced trapped electrons under inverter-circuit operation. The effect is thus enhanced not only by the increase in the number of hole injections but also by the increase in the number of electron injections. It was found that the device characteristics of p-channel TFTs are more rapidly degraded as the rising time of the input pulse becomes shorter. This degradation is caused by the transient increase in the number of hot electrons, which are generated when holes are emitted from the trap states when the p-channel TFTs are turned off.      

Evaluation of LDD MOSFET's based on hot-electron-induced degradation

Hot-electron-induced device degradation in LDD MOSFET's is thoroughly studied. Conventional ways to characterize device degradation, i.e., threshold shift and transconductance reduction, are not suitable for LDD MOSFET's due to the nature of degradation in such devices. Using a current-drive degradation criterion, it is shown that LDD MOSFET's have little net advantage over conventional MOSFET's in terms of hot-electron-induced long-term degradation.     

Hot-electron-induced degradation of conventional, minimum overlap,LDD and DDD N-channel MOSFETs

Substrate current characteristics of conventional minimum overlap, DDD (double-diffused drain), and LDD (lightly doped drain) n-channel MOSFETs with various LDD n^- doses have been studied. Threshold voltage shift, transconductance degradation, and change of substrate current for these devices after stressing were also investigated. The minimum gate/drain overlap devices had the highest substrate current and the worst hot-electron-induced degradation. The amount of gate-to-n⁺ drain overlap in LDD devices was an important factor for hot-electron effects, especially for devices with low LDD n^- doses. The injection of hot holes into gate oxide in these devices at small stressed gate voltages was observed and was clearly reflected in the change of substrate current. The device degradation of low-doped LDD n-channel MOSFETs induced by AC stress was rather severe     

不同HALO掺杂剂量的超薄栅pMOSFET的退化

研究了热载流子应力下栅厚为2.1nm,栅长为0.135μm的pMOSFET中HALO掺杂剂量与器件的退化机制和参数退化的关系.实验发现,器件的退化机制对HALO掺杂剂量的改变不敏感,但是器件的线性漏电流、饱和漏电流、最大跨导的退化随着HALO掺杂剂量的增加而增加.实验同时发现,器件参数的退化不仅与载流子迁移率的退化、漏串联电阻增大有关,而且与阈值电压的退化和应力前阈值电压有关.     

A new insight into the degradation behavior of the LDD N-MOSFETduring dynamic hot-carrier stressing

A new degradation behavior of LDD N-MOSFETs during dynamic hot-carrier stress is presented. Increased degradation occurs during the gate pulse transition, and involves hot-hole injection that initially begins in the oxide-spacer region, and later propagates to the channel region. Experimental results clearly show that increased degradation of the linear drain current and transconductance is mainly due to hole-induced interface traps in the oxide-spacer region. Electron trapping at hole-induced oxide defects, on the other hand, is mainly responsible for the enhanced threshold voltage shift in the late stage, when hole injection coincides with electron injection in the channel region     

Performance and reliability evaluation of high dielectric LDDspacer on deep sub-micrometer LDD MOSFET

High dielectric LDD spacer has been proposed to achieve both reliability and performance improvement on the scaled LDD MOSFET's. However, the sidewall polyoxide and spacer bottom oxide required for process reliability issue will adversely limit the DC performance improvement gained by using high dielectric LDD spacer. AC performance is evaluated by the transconductance cutoff frequency determined by the transconductance, G_M and total gate capacitance, C_GG . For deep-submicron MOSFET's, the dominance of gate to source/drain overlap capacitance in C_GG has significant impact on the AC performance. The increase of C_GG due to the enhanced fringe field from high dielectric LDD spacer significantly dominates over the increase of transconductance, and then deteriorates the AC performance. As the reliability issue is concerned, the key doping profile, N^- source/drain lateral diffusion profile was obtained from the two dimensional process simulator SUPREM-IV corresponding to wide range of LDD N^- doses. The optimized N ^- dose designed for hot carrier reliability issue (under V _GS-V_T=0.5 V_DS operation) is located around 2×10¹³ cm^-2 for both conventional LDD (denoted as OLDD in this paper) and high dielectric LDD (HLDD) devices. However, the improvement achieved by using HLDD instead of OLDD devices is then turned out to be insignificant under this optimized N^- dose condition     

Lifetime reliability of thin-film SOI nMOSFET's

The dc device lifetime reliability of thin-film SOI MOSFET's is investigated over a wide range of drain stress from just below the SOI breakdown voltage up to typical accelerated stress voltages. Unique hot-carrier degradation behaviors were observed for different ranges of applied drain stress. The degradation behavior and mechanism are found to dynamically change from one type observed under low drain stress (realistic operation range) to a different type observed under high drain stress (strong breakdown operation). This causes the SOI MOSFET to exhibit a two slope lifetime versus reciprocal drain voltage behavior which could have strong implications on the hot-carrier stressing methodology and reliability study of these devices     

A comparison of MOSFETs aging under d.c., a.c. and alternating stress conditions

The effects of static, alternating and dynamic stress conditions on the degradation rate of 0.8μm n- and p-channel LDD MOS transistors have systematically been investigated and compared. The shifts of the threshold voltage, transconductance, linear drain current and charge pumping current were used to monitor the transistor degradation. The results suggest that the aging induced by a dynamic stress cannot be directly explained with static stress models, essentially because it is highly dependent on a larger number of parameters (biases and durations of the top and bottom levels of the pulses, transient times). The correlation of static and dynamic stresses also clarifies the degradation mechanisms, in particular the role of hot holes in the generation of interface states.     

Hot-electron effects in Silicon-on-insulator n-channel MOSFET's

Hot-electron degradation has been measured in short-channel bulk and SOI MOSFET's. The presence of a floating substrate in the SOI devices appears to increase the drain-saturation voltage and, therefore, to reduce the drain electric field. This effect is even further enhanced when thin fully depleted films are considered. Electrical stress measurements and device modeling suggest that hot-electron degradation should be smaller in SOI MOSFET's than in their bulk counterparts.     

Performance and hot-carrier effects of small CRYO-CMOS devices

The performance characteristics of submicrometer CMOS devices operating at low/cryogenic temperatures (CRYO-CMOS) are determined. The advantages and problems in a CRYO-CMOS technology are experimentally studied in relation to the velocity saturation, source-drain resistances, mobility behavior, carrier freeze-out effects, hot-carrier effects, and circuit performance. The increase of the maximum transconductance at low temperatures (77, 4.2 K) has been confirmed even in the submicrometer channel region. However, improvement of inabilities at a VGnearly equal to 5 V is not so significant in devices with thinner oxides and less so in pMOS devices than in nMOS devices. Excellent subthreshold characteristics have been obtained at low temperatures, making very low-voltage operation possible. One problem found in the threshold control of pMOS transistors is that the boron ions implanted in the surface freeze out, causing unusual subthreshold behavior. Circuit delays have been improved by a factor of 2 to 3, and CRYO-CMOS shows the lowest power-delay product among existing semiconductor technologies with speed performance comparable to bipolar ECL devices. For LDD devices, speed improvements are only slightly smaller than for single-drain devices, while currents and transconductances in the linear regions are limited because of carrier freeze-out of the lightly doped drain. For both channel LDD devices, the transconductance degradations and VTshifts observed under dc stress conditions at 77 K are considered to result from electron injection into spacer oxides.     

Hot electron effects on Al0.25Ga0.75As/GaAspower HFET's under off-state and on-state electrical stress conditions

This work shows a detailed comparison of the degradation modes caused by off-state and on-state room temperature electrical stress on the DC characteristics of power AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure field effect transistors (HFET's) for X- and Ku-band applications. The devices are stressed under DC bias conditions that result in electron heating and impact ionization in the gate-drain region. Incremental stress experiments carried out at gate-drain reverse currents up to 3.3 mA/mm (for a total of more than 700 h) show a remarkably larger degradation for the off state stress, due to more pronounced electron heating at any fixed value of gate reverse current. This represents an important piece of information for the reliability engineer when it comes to designing the accelerated stress experiments for hot electron robustness evaluation. The degradation modes observed, all of a permanent nature, include threshold voltage and drain resistance increase and drain current and transconductance reduction     

On the accuracy of channel length characterization of LDD MOSFET's

A comprehensive investigation into the various mechanisms that limit the accuracy of channel length extraction techniques for lightly doped drain (LDD) MOSFET's is presented. Analytic equations are derived to quantify the sensitivity of the extraction techniques to the geometry effect, and bias dependence of the n^-source and drain resistance. The analytic approach is supplemented and verified by exercising channel length extraction algorithms on current-voltage characteristics obtained from rigorous numerical simulations of a variety of LDD MOSFET's. The analyses clearly show that low gate overdrives and consistent threshold voltage measurements are required to accurately extract the metallurgical channel length. The analytic equations can be used to project the limitations of channel length extraction methods for future submicrometer LDD MOSFET's.     

A model for the electric field in lightly doped drain structures

A semi-quantitative model for the lateral channel electric field in LDD MOSFET's has been developed. This model is derived from a quasi-two-dimensional analysis under the assumption of a uniform doping profile. A field reduction factor and voltage improvement, indicating the effectiveness of an LDD design in reducing the peak channel field, are used to compare LDD structures with, without, and with partial gate/drain overlap. Approximate equations have been derived that show the dependencies of the field reduction factor on bias conditions and process parameters. Plots showing the trade-off between, and the process-dependencies of, the field reduction factor/voltage improvement and the series resistance are presented for the three cases. Structures with gate-drain overlap are found to provide greater field reduction than those without the overlap for the same series resistance introduced. This should be considered when comparing the double-diffused and spacer LDD structures. It is shown that gate-drain offset can cause the rise of channel field and substrate current at large gate voltages. This offset is also found to be responsible for nonsaturation of drain current. The model has also been compared with two-dimensional simulation results.     

Performance of commercial foundry-level AlGaN/GaN HEMTs after hot electron stressing

The performance degradation of commercial foundry level GaN HEMTs placed under a constant-power drain voltage step-stress test has been studied. By utilizing electroluminescence measurement techniques to optimize hot electron stress testing conditions (Meneghini, 2012), no significant permanent changes in saturation current (I_dss), transconductance (Gm), and threshold voltage (V_th) can be seen after stress testing of drain voltages from 30 V up to 200 V. We observe little permanent degradation due to hot electron effects in GaN HEMTs at these extreme operating conditions and it is inferred that other considerations, such as key dimensions in channel or peak electric field (Chynoweth, 1958; Zhang and Singh, 2001) [2,3], are more relevant to physics of failure than drain bias alone.     

Degradation of short-channel MOSFET's under constant current stress across gate and drain

We have employed a technique of constant current stress between the gate and drain of a MOS transistor to study the degradation of the threshold voltage, transconductance, and substrate current characteristics of the transistor. From the transistor characteristics, we propose that the degradation mechanism is a combined effect of trapping of holes in the gate oxide created by impact ionization due to the high electric field (> 8 MV/cm) across the oxide, and electron trapping phenomena. The degradation characteristics of the transistor under this constant current stress are quite similar to that observed normally due to the injection of hot electrons in the gate oxide when the transistor is biased in "ON" condition and the gate and drain voltages are selected to produce maximum substrate current.     

Hot-carrier drifts in submicrometer p-channel MOSFET's

Hot-carrier-induced shifts in p-channel MOSFET operating characteristics have been observed down to drain voltages of - 6 V. Cases are discussed in which p-MOSFET's show up to two orders of magnitude larger degradation than corresponding n-MOSFET's. The shifts include current and threshold voltage increases. From dependences on stress gate voltage, stress drain voltage, time, and substrate current, the hot-carrier origin of the shifts is specified in detail.     

A theoretical study of gate/Drain offset in LDD MOSFET's

A semi-quantitative model for the lateral channel electric field in LDD MOSFET's has been developed. This model is derived from a quasi-two-dimensional analysis under the assumption of a uniform doping profile. A field reduction factor, indicating the effectiveness of an LDD design in reducing the peak channel field, is used to compared LDD structures with, without, and with partial gate/drain overlap. Plots showing the trade-off between, and the process-dependencies of, the field reduction factor (FRF) and the series resistance are presented for the three cases. Structures with gate/drain overlap are found to provide greater field reduction than those without the overlap for the same series resistance introduced. This should be considered when comparing the double-diffused and spacer LDD structures. It is shown that gate/drain offset can cause the rise of channel field and substrate current at large gate voltages. Good agreement with simulations is obtained.     

Simulation of hot-electron trapping and aging of nMOSFETs

An analysis of the degradation of 1-μm-gate-length nMOSFET operating under normal biasing conditions at room temperature is reported. A physical model of hot-electron trapping in SiO₂ is developed and is used with a two-dimensional device simulator (PISCES) to simulate the aging of the device under normal biasing conditions. The initial degradation takes place near the high-field drain region and spreads over a long time toward the source. The degraded I-V characteristics of the MOSFET exhibit a shift of the pinchoff voltage and a compression of the transconductance, for forward and reverse operation, respectively. The simulated degradation qualitatively agrees with reported experimental data. Large shifts of the MOSFET threshold voltage for small drain voltages result as the degradation is spreading toward the source. An inflection point arises for low gate and drain voltages in the drain I-V characteristics of the MOSFET. This inflection point originates when the pinchoff of the channel-induced trapped-electron charge is overcome by the drain voltage; the drain acts as a second gate (short-channel effect). The estimation of the device's lifetime by simulated aging is proposed