Channel hot-carrier-induced breakdown of PDSOI NMOSFET's

The hot-carrier-induced oxide breakdown was clarified for partially depleted silicon on insulator (PDSOI) NMOSFET's fabricated on SIMOX (separation by implanted oxygen) wafer. The gate oxide properties were considered to analyze the channel hot-carrier effects. Hot-carrier-induced device degradation was analyzed by stress experiments under three typical hot-carrier injection conditions. Based on these results, the influence of channel hot carriers on SOI NMOSFET's front-channel properties was investigated. A power time dependence extrapolation technique was proposed to predict the device lifetime. Experimental results show that the NMOSFET's degradation is caused by the hot-holes, which are injected into the gate oxide from the drain and then trapped near the drain side. The electrons trapped in the gate oxide can accelerate the gate breakdown. The two simultaneous breakages of Si-O bonds at a Si atom lead to the irreversible relaxation of the oxide network. A novel physical mechanism of channel hot-carrier-induced gate oxide breakdown was presented.