Physical Mechanism and Gate Insulator Material Dependence of Generation and Recovery of Negative-Bias Temperature Instability in p-MOSFETs

Impact of gate dielectric processing [plasma and thermal nitridation, nitrogen total dose, effective oxide thickness (EOT)] on negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI) degradation and recovery is studied. The magnitude, field, and temperature dependence of NBTI is measured using no-delay I_DLIN method and carefully compared to charge-pumping measurements. Plasma (thin and thick EOT) and thermal (thin EOT) oxynitrides show very similar temperature and time dependence of NBTI generation, which is identical to control oxides and is shown to be due to generation of interface traps. NBTI enhancement for oxynitride films is shown to be dependent on nitrogen concentration at the Si-SiO₂ interface and plasma oxynitrides show lower NBTI compared to their thermal counterparts for same total nitrogen dose and EOT. Both fast and slow NBTI recovery components are shown to be due to recovery of generated interface traps. Recovery fraction reduces at lower EOT, while for similar EOT oxynitrides show lower recovery with-respect-to control oxides. NBTI generation and recovery is explained with the framework of reaction-diffusion model.