Stress-Induced Hump Effects of p-Channel Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors

Positive bias temperature instability in p-channel polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors is investigated. The stress-induced hump in the subthreshold region is observed and is attributed to the edge transistor along the channel width direction. The electric field at the corner is higher than that at the channel due to thinner gate insulator and larger electric flux density at the corner. The current of edge transistor is independent of the channel width. The electron trapping in the gate insulator via the Fowler–Nordheim tunneling yields the positive voltage shift. As compared to the channel transistor, more trapped electrons at the edge lead to more positive voltage shift and create the hump. The hump is less significant at high temperature due to the thermal excitation of trapped elections via the Frenkel–Poole emission.      

A Reliability Model for Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors

We proposed here a reliability model that successfully introduces both the physical mechanisms of negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) and hot carrier stress (HCS) for p-channel low-temperature polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors (LTPS TFTs). The proposed model is highly matched with the experimental results, in which the NBTI dominates the device reliability at small negative drain bias while the HCS dominates the degradation at large negative drain bias. In summary, the proposed model provides a comprehensive way to predict the lifetime of the p-channel LTPS TFTs, which is especially necessary for the system-on-panel circuitry design.      

Negative Bias Temperature Instability in Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors

The authors have proved that negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) is an important reliability issue in low-temperature polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors (LTPS TFTs). The measurements revealed that the threshold-voltage shift is highly correlated to the generation of grain-boundary trap states. Both these two physical quantities follow almost the same power law dependence on the stress time; that is, the same exponential dependence on the stress voltage and the reciprocal of the ambient temperature. In addition, the threshold-voltage shift is closely associated with the subthreshold-swing degradation, which originates from dangling bond formation. By expanding the model proposed for bulk-Si MOSFETs, a new model to explain the NBTI-degradation mechanism for LTPS TFTs is introduced     

The Characteristics of New n-Type Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors Employing Alternating Magnetic-Field-Enhanced Rapid Thermal Annealing

We fabricated a new top-gate n-type depletion-mode polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin-film transistor (TFT) employing alternating magnetic-field-enhanced rapid thermal annealing. An n⁺ amorphous silicon (n⁺ a-Si) layer was deposited to improve the contact resistance between the active Si and source/drain (S/D) metal. The proposed process was almost compatible with the widely used hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) TFT fabrication process. This new process offers better uniformity when compared to the conventional laser-crystallized poly-Si TFT process, because it involves nonlaser crystallization. The poly-Si TFT exhibited a threshold voltage (V_TH) of -7.99 V at a drain bias of 0.1 V, a field-effect mobility of 7.14 cm²/V ldr s, a subthreshold swing (S) of 0.68 V/dec, and an ON/OFF current ratio of 107. The diffused phosphorous ions (P⁺ ions) in the channel reduced the V_TH and increased the S value.     

Plasma Damage-Enhanced Negative Bias Temperature Instability in Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors

In this letter, a mechanism that will make negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) be accelerated by plasma damage in low-temperature polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors (LTPS TFTs) is presented. The experimental results confirm that the mechanism, traditionally found in the thin gate-oxide devices, does exist also in LTPS TFTs. That is, when performing the NBTI measurement, the LTPS TFTs with a larger antenna ratio will have a higher degree in degradation of the threshold voltage, effective mobility, and drive current under NBTI stress. By extracting the related device parameters, it was demonstrated that the enhancement is mainly attributed to the plasma-damage-modulated creating of interfacial states, grain boundary trap states, and fixed oxide charges. It could be concluded that plasma damage will speed up the NBTI and should be avoided for the LTPS TFT circuitry design     

Analysis of Negative Bias Temperature Instability in Body-Tied Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors

Negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) degradation mechanism in body-tied low-temperature polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors (LTPS TFTs) is analyzed by the charge-pumping (CP) technique. The properties of bulk trap states (including interface and grain boundary trap states) are directly characterized from the CP current. The increase of the fixed oxide charges is also extracted, which has not been quantified in previous studies of NBTI degradation in LTPS TFTs. The experimental results confirm that the NBTI degradation in LTPS TFTs is caused by the generation of bulk trap states and oxide trap states.     

HgTe Nanocrystal-Based Thin-Film Transistors Fabricated on Glass Substrates

HgTe nanocrystal-based thin-film transistors (TFTs) with Al₂ O₃ top-gate dielectrics were fabricated on glass substrates using sintered HgTe nanocrystals as the channel layers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the fabrication of nanocrystal-based TFTs on glass substrates. Colloidal HgTe nanocrystal films were first formed on the glass substrates by spin-coating. The HgTe nanocrystal films were then sintered at 150 degC, leading to a dramatic increase in their conductance, compared with the as-deposited films. The TFTs fabricated in this letter exhibit the typical characteristics of p-channel transistors with a field-effect mobility of 1.04 cm²/Vmiddots, a threshold voltage of +0.2 V, and an on/off current ratio of 1times10³. These results suggest that spin-coating and sintering at a low temperature enable the simple and low-cost fabrication of nanocrystal-based TFTs on glass substrates     

Stress Power Dependent Self-Heating Degradation of Metal-Induced Laterally Crystallized n-Type Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors

Using a fluorinated high-k/metal gate stack combined with a stress relieved preoxide (SRPO) pretreatment before high-k deposition, we show significant device reliability and performance improvements. This is a critical result since threshold voltage instability may be a fundamental problem, and performance degradation for high-fc is a concern. The novel fluorinated Ta_infinC_y/HfZrO_infin/SRPO gate stack device exceeds the positive-bias-temperature-instability and negative-bias-temperature-instability targets with sufficient margin and has electron mobility at 1 MV/cm comparable to the industrial high-quality polySi/SiON device on bulk silicon.     

Performances of a Capacitorless 1T-DRAM Using Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors With Trenched Body

Polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors (TFTs) can be improved by integrating DRAM on chip. However, the TFT's poor capacitance means that traditional DRAMs are infeasible, because they require a capacitor. An alternative, the one-transistor DRAM (1T-DRAM), is promising because it avoids the capacitor by instead storing the logical value as holes trapped in the body region. This letter proposes the use of a trenched body in a TFT to construct a 1T-DRAM. Previously, we have shown that a trenched body reduces the leakage current of a TFT. In this letter, we now show that the trenched-body TFT also works well as a 1T-DRAM device. It has a strong back-gating effect and a programming window that is more than twice as large as that of the conventional TFT.      

A Reduced Mask-Count Technology for Complementary Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors With Self-Aligned Metal Electrodes

The inexpensive glass substrate for building conventional low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin-film transistors (TFTs) imposes a ceiling on the TFT processing temperature. This results in a reduced efficiency of dopant activation and a high source/drain series resistance. A technique based on aluminum-induced crystallization of amorphous silicon has been applied to fabricate TFTs with low-resistance self-aligned metal electrodes (SAMEs). While at least two masked implantation steps are typically used for constructing the doped source and drain regions of conventional n- and p-channel TFTs in a complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor circuit technology, it is currently demonstrated that complementary SAME poly-Si TFTs can be constructed using a combination of a masked and a blanket source and drain implantation steps. The decrease in mask count reduces process complexity and cost. Control of ion channeling is the enabling factor behind the successful demonstration of the technology.      

Negative Bias Temperature Instability Dominated Degradation of Metal-Induced Laterally Crystallized p-Type Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors

Device degradation of solution-based metal-induced laterally crystallized p-type polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin-film transistors (TFTs) is studied under dc bias stresses. While typical negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) or electron injection (EI) is observed under $-V_{g}$ or $-V_{d}$ only stress, respectively, no typical hot carrier (HC) degradation can be identified under high $-V_{d}$ stress combined with either low or high $-V_{g}$ stress. Instead, mixed NBTI and EI degradation is observed under combined low $-V_{g}$ and $-V_{d}$ stresses; and combined degradation of NBTI and HC occurs under high $-V_{d}$ and moderate $-V_{g}$ stresses. NBTI is the dominant mechanism in both cases. Grain boundary (GB) trap generation is found to correlate with the NBTI degradation with the same time exponent, suggesting the key role of GB trap generation in poly-Si TFTs' degradation.      

基于溶液法的金属诱导碟型晶畴多晶硅薄膜和薄膜晶体管的研究

以非晶硅为晶化前驱物,采用镍盐溶液浸沾的方法可以得到超大尺寸碟型晶畴结构的低温多晶硅薄膜.所得多晶硅薄膜的平均晶畴尺寸大约为50 μm,空穴的最高霍尔迁移率为30.8 cm~2/V·s,电子的最高霍尔迁移率为45.6 cm~2/V·s.用这种多晶硅薄膜为有源层,所得多晶硅TFT的场效应迁移率典型值为70～80 cm~2 /V·s,亚阈值斜摆幅为1.5 V/decade,开关电流比为1.01×10~7,开启电压为-8.3 V.另外,P型的TFT在高栅偏压和热载流子偏压下具有良好的器件稳定性.     

Degradation Behaviors of Metal-Induced Laterally Crystallized n-Type Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistors Under DC Bias Stresses

Device degradation behaviors of typical-sized n-type metal-induced laterally crystallized polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors were investigated in detail under two kinds of dc bias stresses: hot-carrier (HC) stress and self-heating (SH) stress. Under HC stress, device degradation is the consequence of HC induced defect generation locally at the drain side. Under a unified model that postulates, the establishment of a potential barrier at the drain side due to carrier transport near trap states, device degradation behavior such as asymmetric on current recovery and threshold voltage degradation can be understood. Under SH stress, a general degradation in subthreshold characteristic was observed. Device degradation is the consequence of deep state generation along the entire channel. Device degradation behaviors were compared in low V_d-stress and in high V_d-stress condition. Defect generation distribution along the channel appears to be different in two cases. In both cases of SH degradation, asymmetric on current recovery was observed. This observation, when in low V_d-stress condition, is tentatively explained by dehydrogenation (hydrogenation) effect at the drain (source) side during stress     

Passivation Effects of Aluminum on Polycrystalline Silicon Thin-Film Transistor With Metal-Replaced Junctions

Aluminum was detected in the channel of a thin-film transistor after its replacement of the polycrystalline silicon source and drain junctions. The resulting transistor exhibits enhanced field-effect mobility, steeper slope of the pseudosubthreshold region, reduced turn-on voltage extrapolated from the linear regime of operation, higher on-state current, and improved immunity against short-channel effects. These improvements are consistent with a measured reduction in the density of trap states. The reduction can be attributed to the presence of aluminum in the channel     

Amorphous-Silicon Thin-Film Transistors Fabricated at 300 °C on a Free-Standing Foil Substrate of Clear Plastic

We have made hydrogenated amorphous-silicon thin-film transistors (TFTs) at a process temperature of 300^degC on free-standing clear-plastic foil substrates. The key to the achievement of flat and smooth samples was to design the mechanical stresses in the substrate passivation and transistor layers, allowing us to obtain functional transistors over the entire active surface. Back-channel-passivated TFTs made at 300 ^degC on glass substrates and plastic substrates have identical electrical characteristics and gate-bias-stress stability. These results suggest that free-standing clear-plastic foil can replace display glass as a substrate from the points of process temperature, substrate and device integrity, and TFT performance and stability.     

Dynamic Negative Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI) of Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Silicon (LTPS) Thin-Film Transistors

The dynamic negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) on low-temperature polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors (LTPS TFTs) was investigated in detail. Experimental results revealed the threshold voltage shift of LTPS TFTs after the NBTI stress decreases with increasing frequency, which is different from the frequency-independence of conventional CMOSFET. Under a low frequency stress, the capacitance-voltage measurement with various frequencies implied that a larger quantity of inversion holes was trapped in the grain boundary. Thus, the difference of the transit time between the grain boundary and interface dominates the LTPS TFTs dynamic NBTI behaviors and results in the dependence of frequency.     

绝缘层/有源层界面修饰及对有机薄膜晶体管性能的影响

制备了具有修饰层的有机薄膜场效应晶体管,采用高掺杂Si作为栅极,传统的无机绝缘材料SiO2作为栅绝缘层,有机绝缘材料PMMA或OTS作为修饰层,CuPc作为有源层,Au作为源、漏极.测试结果表明,采用经过修饰的栅绝缘层SiO2/OTS和SiO2/PMMA的两种器件的开关电流比最高可达8×104,迁移率最高为1.22×10-3cm2/(V·s),而漏电流仅为10-10A,总体性能优于单层SiO2器件.     

绝缘层/有源层界面修饰及对有机薄膜晶体管性能的影响

制备了具有修饰层的有机薄膜场效应晶体管,采用高掺杂Si作为栅极,传统的无机绝缘材料SiO2作为栅绝缘层,有机绝缘材料PMMA或OTS作为修饰层,CuPc作为有源层,Au作为源、漏极.测试结果表明,采用经过修饰的栅绝缘层SiO2/OTS和SiO2/PMMA的两种器件的开关电流比最高可达8×104,迁移率最高为1.22×10-3cm2/(V·s),而漏电流仅为10-10A,总体性能优于单层SiO2器件.