Energy distribution extraction of negative charges responsible for positive bias temperature instability

A new method is proposed to extract the energy distribution of negative charges, which results from electron trapping by traps in the gate stack of n MOSFET during positive bias temperature instability（PBTI） stress based on the recovery measurement. In our case, the extracted energy distribution of negative charges shows an obvious dependence on energy,and the energy level of the largest energy density of negative charges is 0.01 eV above the conduction band of silicon. The charge energy distribution below that energy level shows strong dependence on the stress voltage.

Positive Bias Temperature Instability and Hot Carrier Injection of Back Gate Ultra-thin-body In0.53Ga0.47As-on-Insulator n-Channel Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor

Ultra-thin-body （UTB） In0.53Ga0.47As-on-insulator （In0.53Ga0.47As-OI） structures with thicknesses of 8 and 15nm are realized by transferring epitaxially grown In0.53Ga0.47As layers to silicon substrates with 15-nmthick A12 03 as a buried oxide by using the direct wafer bonding method. Back gate n-channel metal-oxidesemiconductor field-effect transistors （nMOSFETs） are fabricated by using these In0.53Ga0.47As-OI structures with excellent electrical characteristics. Positive bias temperature instability （PBTI） and hot carrier injection （HCI） characterizations are performed for the In0.53Ga0.47As-OI nMOSFETs. It is confirmed that the In0.53Ga0.47 As-OI nMOSFETs with a thinner body thickness suffer from more severe degradations under both PBTI and HCr stresses. Moreover, the different evolutions of the threshold voltage and the saturation current of the UTB In0.53Ga0.47As-OI nMOSFETs may be due to the slow border traps.

Dependence of short channel length on negative/positive bias temperature instability (NBTI/PBTI) for 3D FinFET devices

A comprehensive study of the negative and positive bias temperature instability(NBTI/PBTI)of 3D FinFET devices with different small channel lengths is presented.It is found while with the channel lengths shrinking from 100 nm to 30 nm,both the NBTI characteristics of p-FinFET and PBTI characteristics of n-FinFET turn better.Moreover,the channel length dependence on NBTI is more serious than that on PBTI.Through the analysis of the physical mechanism of BTI and the simulation of 3-D stress in the FinFET device,a physical mechanism of the channel length dependence on NBTI/PBTI is proposed.Both extra fluorine passivation in the corner of bulk oxide and stronger channel stress in p-FinFETs with shorter channel length causes less NBTI issue,while the extra nitrogen passivation in the corner of bulk oxide induces less PBTI degradation as the channel length decreasing for n-FinFETs.The mechanism well matches the experimental result and provides one helpful guide for the improvement of reliability issues in the advanced FinFET process.

The role of hydrogen in negative bias temperature instability of pMOSFET

The NBTI degradation phenomenon and the role of hydrogen during NBT stress are presented in this paper. It is found that PBT stress can recover a fraction of Vth shift induced by NBT1. However, this recovery is unstable. The original degradation reappears soon after reapplication of the NBT stress condition. Hydrogen-related species play a key role during a device＇s NBT degradation. Experimental results show that the diffusion species are neutral, they repassivate Si dangling bond which is independent of the gate voltage polaxity. In addition to the diffusion towards gate oxide, hydrogen diffusion to Si-substrate must be taken into account for it also has important influence on device degradation during NBT stress.

Study on the drain bias effect on negative bias temperature instability degradation of an ultra-short p-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor

This paper studies the effect of drain bias on ultra-short p-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor （PMOSFET） degradation during negative bias temperature （NBT） stress. When a relatively large gate voltage is applied, the degradation magnitude is much more than the drain voltage which is the same as the gate voltage supplied, and the time exponent gets larger than that of the NBT instability （NBTI）. With decreasing drain voltage, the degradation magnitude and the time exponent all get smaller. At some values of the drain voltage, the degradation magnitude is even smaller than that of NBTI, and when the drain voltage gets small enough, the exhibition of degradation becomes very similar to the NBTI degradation. When a relatively large drain voltage is applied, with decreasing gate voltage, the degradation magnitude gets smaller. However, the time exponent becomes larger. With the help of electric field simulation, this paper concludes that the degradation magnitude is determined by the vertical electric field of the oxide, the amount of hot holes generated by the strong channel lateral electric field at the gate/drain overlap region, and the time exponent is mainly controlled by localized damage caused by the lateral electric field of the oxide in the gate/drain overlap region where hot carriers are produced.

Flat-roof phenomenon of dynamic equilibrium phase in the negative bias temperature instability effect on a power MOSFET

The effect of the static negative bias temperature （NBT） stress on a p-channel power metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor （MOSFET） is investigated by experiment and simulation. The time evolution of the negative bias temperature instability （NBTI） degradation has the trend predicted by the reaction-diffusion （R-D） model but with an exaggerated time scale. The phenomena of the flat-roof section are observed under various stress conditions, which can be considered as the dynamic equilibrium phase in the R-D process. Based on the simulated results, the variation of the flat-roof section with the stress condition can be explained.

Effect of substrate bias on negative bias temperature instability of ultra-deep sub-micro p-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors

The effect of substrate bias on the degradation during applying a negative bias temperature （NBT） stress is studied in this paper. With a smaller gate voltage stress applied, the degradation of negative bias temperature instability （NBTI） is enhanced, and there comes forth an inflexion point. The degradation pace turns larger when the substrate bias is higher than the inflexion point. The substrate hot holes can be injected into oxide and generate additional oxide traps, inducing an inflexion phenomenon. When a constant substrate bias stress is applied, as the gate voltage stress increases, an inflexion comes into being also. The higher gate voltage causes the electrons to tunnel into the substrate from the poly, thereby generating the electro,hole pairs by impact ionization. The holes generated by impact ionization and the holes from the substrate all can be accelerated to high energies by the substrate bias. More additional oxide traps can be produced, and correspondingly, the degradation is strengthened by the substrate bias. The results of the alternate stress experiment show that the interface traps generated by the hot holes cannot be annealed, which is different from those generated by common holes.

Influence of ultra-thin TiN thickness(1.4 nm and 2.4 nm) on positive bias temperature instability(PBTI)of high-k/metal gate nMOSFETs with gate-last process

The positive bias temperature instability（PBTI） degradations of high-k/metal gate（HK/MG） n MOSFETs with thin TiN capping layers（1.4 nm and 2.4 nm） are systemically investigated. In this paper, the trap energy distribution in gate stack during PBTI stress is extracted by using ramped recovery stress, and the temperature dependences of PBTI（90℃,125℃, 160℃） are studied and activation energy（Ea） values（0.13 eV and 0.15 eV） are extracted. Although the equivalent oxide thickness（EOT） values of two TiN thickness values are almost similar（0.85 nm and 0.87 nm）, the 2.4-nm TiN one（thicker Ti N capping layer） shows better PBTI reliability（13.41% at 0.9 V, 90℃, 1000 s）. This is due to the better interfacial layer/high-k（IL/HK） interface, and HK bulk states exhibited through extracting activation energy and trap energy distribution in the high-k layer.

Study on the negative bias temperature instability effect under dynamic stress

This paper studies negative bias temperature instability （NBTI） under alternant and alternating current （AC） stress. Under alternant stress, the degradation smaller than that of single negative stress is obtained. The smaller degradation is resulted from the recovery of positive stress. There are two reasons for the recovery. One is the passivation of H dangling bonds, and another is the detrapping of charges trapped in the oxide. Under different frequencies of AC stress, the parameters all show regular degradation, and also smaller than that of the direct current stress. The higher the frequency is, the smaller the degradation becomes. As the negative stress time is too small under higher frequency, the deeper defects are hard to be filled in. Therefore, the detrapping of oxide charges is easy to occur under positive bias and the degradation is smaller with higher frequency.

Evaluation of negative bias temperature instability in ultra-thin gate oxide pMOSFETs using a new on-line PDO method

A new on-line methodology is used to characterize the negative bias temperature instability （NBTI） without inherent recovery. Saturation drain voltage shift and mobility shift are extracted by ID-VD characterizations, which were measured before stress, and after every certain stress phase, using the proportional differential operator （PDO） method. The new on-line methodology avoids the mobility linearity assumption as compared with the previous onthe-fly method. It is found that both reaction-diffusion and charge-injection processes are important in NBTI effect under either DC or AC stress. A similar activation energy, 0.15 eV, occurred in both DC and AC NBTI processes. Also degradation rate factor is independent of temperature below 90℃ and sharply increases above it. The frequency dependence of NBTI degradation shows that NBTI degradation is independent of frequencies. The carrier tunnelling and reaction-diffusion mechanisms exist simultaneously in NBTI degradation of sub-micron pMOSFETs, and the carrier tunnelling dominates the earlier NBTI stage and the reaction-diffusion mechanism follows when the generation rate of traps caused by carrier tunnelling reaches its maximum.

Effects of stress conditions on the generation of negative bias temperature instability-associated interface traps

The exponent n of the generation of an interface trap （Nit）, which contributes to the power-law negative bias temperature instability （NBTI） degradation, and the exponent’s time evolution are investigated by simulations with varying the stress voltage Vg and temperature T. It is found that the exponent n in the diffusion-limited phase of the degradation process is irrelevant to both Vg and T. The time evolution of the exponent n is affected by the stress conditions, which is reflected in the shift of the onset of the diffusion-limited phase. According to the diffusion profiles, the generation of the atomic hydrogen species, which is equal to the buildup of Nit, is strongly correlated with the stress conditions, whereas the diffusion of the hydrogen species shows Vg-unaffected but T-affected relations through the normalized results.

Body Bias Dependence of Bias Temperature Instability(BTI)in Bulk FinFET Technology

In this article,the body bias dependence of the bias temperature instability(BTI)in bulk FinFETs is experimentally studied,under different test conditions for the first time.In contrast to the traditional understanding that changing body bias has little impact on BTI degradation in FinFETs due to its weak body effect,it is observed that it actually has non-negligible impacts.And a forward body bias(FBB)can reduce the BTI degradation in FinFETs,which is opposite with the trend in planar devices.The underlying physics is found due to the trade-off between two competing factors.The results are helpful for understanding and modeling reliability in FinFETs.

Actions of negative bias temperature instability （NBTI） and hot carriers in ultra-deep submicron p-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors （PMOSFETs）

Hot carrier injection （HCI） at high temperatures and different values of gate bias Vg has been performed in order to study the actions of negative bias temperature instability （NBTI） and hot carriers. Hot-carrier-stress-induced damage at Vg = Vd, where Vd is the voltage of the transistor drain, increases as temperature rises, contrary to conventional hot carrier behaviour, which is identified as being related to the NBTI. A comparison between the actions of NBTI and hot carriers at low and high gate voltages shows that the damage behaviours are quite different： the low gate voltage stress results in an increase in transconductance, while the NBTI-dominated high gate voltage and high temperature stress causes a decrease in transconductance. It is concluded that this can be a major source of hot carrier damage at elevated temperatures and high gate voltage stressing of p-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors （PMOSFETs）. We demonstrate a novel mode of NBTI-enhanced hot carrier degradation in PMOSFETs. A novel method to decouple the actions of NBTI from that of hot carriers is also presented.

Positive Bias Temperature Instability Degradation of Buried InGaAs Channel nMOSFETs with InGaP Barrier Layer and Al2O3 Dielectric

Positive bias temperature instability stress induced interface trap density in a buried InGaAs channel metaloxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor with a InCaP barrier layer and Al2O3 dielectric is investigated. Well behaved split C-V characteristics with small capacitance frequency dispersion are confirmed after the insertion of the InCaP barrier layer. The direct-current Id-Vg measurements show both degradations of positive gate voltage shift and sub-threshold swing in the sub-threshold region, and degradation of positive △Vg in the oncurrent region. The Id-Vg degradation during the positive bias temperature instability tests is mainly contributed by the generation of near interface acceptor traps under stress. Specifically, the stress induced aeceptor traps contain both permanent and recoverable traps. Compared with surface channel InCaAs devices, stress induced recoverable donor traps are negligible in the buried channel ones.

Noise behaviors of a closed-loop micro-electromechanical system capacitive accelerometer

The noise of closed loop micro-electromechanical systems(MEMS) capacitive accelerometer is treated as one of the significant performance specifications.Traditional optimization of noise performance often focuses on designing large capacitive sensitivity accelerometer and applying closed loop structure to shape total noise,but different noise sources in closed loop and their behaviors at low frequencies are seldom carefully studied,especially their behaviors with different electronic parameters.In this work,a thorough noise analysis is established focusing on the four noise sources transfer functions near 0 Hz with simplified electronic parameters in closed loop,and it is found that the total electronic noise equivalent acceleration varies differently at different frequency points,such that the noise spectrum shape at low frequencies can be altered from 1/f noise-like shape to flat spectrum shape.The bias instability changes as a consequence.With appropriate parameters settings,the 670 Hz resonant frequency accelerometer can reach resolution of 2.6 μg/(Hz)1/2 at 2 Hz and 6 μg bias instability,and 1300 Hz accelerometer can achieve 5μg/(Hz)1/2 at 2 Hz and 31 μg bias instability.Both accelerometers have flat spectrum profile from 2 Hz to 15 Hz.

Negative bias temperature instability induced single event transient pulse narrowing and broadening

The effect of negative bias temperature instability （NBTI） on a single event transient （SET） has been studied in a 130 nm bulk silicon CMOS process based on 3D TCAD device simulations. The investigation shows that NBTI can result in the pulse width and amplitude of SET narrowing when the heavy ion hits the PMOS in the high-input inverter; but NBTI can result in the pulse width and amplitude of SET broadening when the heavy ion hits the NMOS in the low-input inverter. Based on this study, for the first time we propose that the impact of NBTI on a SET produced by the heavy ion hitting the NMOS has already been a significant reliability issue and should be of wide concern, and the radiation hardened design must consider the impact of NBTI on a SET.

Analysis of recoverable and permanent components of threshold voltage shift in NBT stressed p-channel power VDMOSFET

In this study we investigate the dynamic recovery effects in IRF9520 commercial p-channel power vertical double diffused metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors（VDMOSFETs） subjected to negative bias temperature（NBT）stressing under the particular pulsed bias. Particular values of the pulsed stress voltage frequency and duty cycle are chosen in order to analyze the recoverable and permanent components of stress-induced threshold voltage shift in detail. The results are discussed in terms of the mechanisms responsible for buildup of oxide charge and interface traps. The partial recovery during the low level of pulsed gate voltage is ascribed to the removal of recoverable component of degradation, i.e., to passivation/neutralization of shallow oxide traps that are not transformed into the deeper traps（permanent component）.Considering the value of characteristic time constant associated with complete removal of the recoverable component of degradation, it is shown that by selecting an appropriate combination of the frequency and duty cycle, the threshold voltage shifts induced under the pulsed negative bias temperature stress conditions can be significantly reduced, which may be utilized for improving the device lifetime in real application circuits.

Ozone oxidation of 4H-SiC and flat-band voltage stability of SiC MOS capacitors

We investigate the effect of ozone(O_(3))oxidation of silicon carbide(SiC)on the flat-band voltage(Vfb)stability of SiC metal–oxide–semiconductor(MOS)capacitors.The SiC MOS capacitors are produced by O_(3)oxidation,and their Vfbstability under frequency variation,temperature variation,and bias temperature stress are evaluated.Secondary ion mass spectroscopy(SIMS),atomic force microscopy(AFM),and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS)indicate that O_(3)oxidation can adjust the element distribution near SiC/SiO_(2)interface,improve SiC/SiO_(2)interface morphology,and inhibit the formation of near-interface defects,respectively.In addition,we elaborate the underlying mechanism through which O_(3)oxidation improves the Vfbstability of SiC MOS capacitors by using the measurement results and O_(3)oxidation kinetics.

Recovery of PMOSFET NBTI under different conditions

Negative bias temperature instability（NBTI） has become a serious reliability issue, and the interface traps and oxide charges play an important role in the degradation process. In this paper, we study the recovery of NBTI systemically under different conditions in the P-type metal–oxide–semiconductor field effect transistor（PMOSFET）, explain the various recovery phenomena, and find the possible processes of the recovery.

Degradation characteristics and mechanism of PMOSFETs under NBT-PBT-NBT stress

Degradation characteristics of PMOSFETs under negative bias temperature-positive bias temperature-negative bias temperature （NBT-PBT-NBT） stress conditions are investigated in this paper. It is found that for all device parameters, the threshold voltage has the largest shift under the first NBT stress condition. When the polarity of gate voltage is changed to positive, the shift of device parameters can be greatly recovered. However, this recovery is unstable. The more severe degradation appears soon after reapplication of NBT stress condition. The second NBT stress causes in linear drain current to degrade greatly, which is different from that of the first NBT stress. This more severe parameter shift results from the wear out of silicon substrate and oxide interface during the first NBT and PBT stress due to carrier trapping/detrapping and hydrogen related species diffusion.