New Observations on the Hot Carrier and NBTI Reliability of Silicon Nanowire Transistors

Hot carrier injection (HCI) and negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) reliability of n-channel and p-channel silicon nanowire transistors (SNWTs) have been investigated in this paper. It was found that the worst-case bias for HCI in n-type SNWTs is different from the conventional planar devices, and HCI is not a critical concern for ultra-scaled SNWTs. For the pMOSFETs, NBTI in SNWTs is relatively severe and exhibits new characteristics. Fast degradation and quick saturation of NBTI were observed due to the structural nature of nanowire devices. AC NBTI of SNWTs was found to be frequency independent. Different recovery behaviors of NBTI in SNWTs under positive and negative/zero bias were observed and discussed. The NBTI-induced additional fluctuation on device degradation of short-channel SNWTs was observed and studied.