A simple new method based on the measurement of charge pumping technique is proposed to separate and quantify experimentally the effects of oxide-trapped charges and interface-trapped charges on threshold voltage degradation in p-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (pMOSFETs) under hot-carrier stress.Further,the experimental results verify the validness of this method.It is shown that,all three mechanisms of electron trapping effect,hole trapping effect and interface trap generation play important roles in p-channel MOSFETs degradation.It is noted that interface-trapped charge is still the dominant mechanism for hot-carrier-induced degradation in p-channel MOSFETs,while a significant contribution of oxide-trapped charge to threshold voltage is demonstrated and quantified.
The saturation behavior of stress current is studied.The three types of precursor sites for trap generation are also introduced by fitting method based on first order rate equation.A further investigation by statistics experiments shows that there are definite relationships among time constant of trap generation,the time to breakdown,and stress voltage.It also means that the time constant of trap generation can be used to predict oxide lifetime.This method is faster for TDDB study compared with usual breakdown experiments.
It is shown that traps are generated asymmetrically in the thin gate oxides with different thickness during high field degradation,as well as the multi-mechanism plays role in the Stress Induced Leakage Current (SILC).These factors perform differently in gate oxide of different thickness.A comparison is drew between several analyzing models.Trap assisted tunneling is preferred for thinner samples,while Pool-Frankel like mechanism or thermal emission mechanism should apply to the thick ones.
