Modeling of tunneling current in ultrathin MOS structure with interface trap charge and fixed oxide charge

A model based on analysis of the self-consistent Poisson-Schrodinger equation is proposed to investigate the tunneling current of electrons in the inversion layer of a p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor （MOS） structure. In this model, the influences of interface trap charge （ITC） at the Si-SiO2 interface and fixed oxide charge （FOC） in the oxide region are taken into account, and one-band effective mass approximation is used. The tunneling probability is obtained by employing the transfer matrix method. Further, the effects of in-plane momentum on the quantization in the electron motion perpendicular to the Si-SiO2 interface of a MOS device are investigated. Theoretical simulation results indicate that both ITC and FOC have great influence on the tunneling current through a MOS structure when their densities are larger than l012 cm 2, which results from the great change of bound electrons near the Si-SiO2 interface and the oxide region. Therefore, for real ultrathin MOS structures with ITC and FOC, this model can give a more accurate description for the tunneling current in the inversion layer.

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.