Impact of charging damage on negative bias temperature instability

The impact of charging damage from plasma processes on negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) is demonstrated. The NBTI lifetime of an antenna device decreases more than 5/spl times/ over intrinsic NBTI lifetime and is seen across devices with different thicknesses of the gate dielectric, as well as different back-end processes (Al or Cu). Charging damage (in antenna devices) during processing creates interface states, which are passivated during sinter, resulting in excess Si-H bonds in antenna devices. The increased degradation of devices with an antenna is attributed to these excess Si-H bonds, which are weak and break during the negative bias temperature stress.