Understanding and Modeling the Temperature Behavior of Hot-Carrier Degradation in SiON nMOSFETs

Abstract

Using our physics-based model for hot-carrier degradation (HCD), we analyze the temperature behavior of HCD in nMOSFETs with a channel length of 44 nm. It was observed that, contrary to most previous findings, the linear drain current change ( $\Delta I_{\mathrm {d,lin}} $ ) measured during hot-carrier stress in these devices appears to be lower at higher temperatures. However, the difference between the $\Delta I_{\mathrm {d,lin}} $ values obtained at different temperatures decreases as the stress voltage increases. This trend is attributed to the single-carrier process of Si–H bond rupture, which is enhanced by the electron–electron scattering. We also consider another important modeling aspect, namely, the vibrational life-time of the Si–H bond, which also depends on the temperature. We finally show that our HCD model can successfully capture the temperature behavior of HCD with physically reasonable parameters.