Understanding Process Impact of Hole Traps and NBTI in HKMG p-MOSFETs Using Measurements and Atomistic Simulations

Author

Mahapatra, Santanu ; De, Suvranu ; Joshi, Kishor ; Mukhopadhyay, Saibal ; Pandey, Rajan K. ; Murali, Kota V. R. M.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Indian Inst. of Technol. Bombay, Mumbai, India

Volume

34

Issue

8

fYear

2013

fDate

Aug. 2013

Firstpage

963

Lastpage

965

Abstract

The impact of the gate insulator process on interlayer (IL) hole traps in IL/high-K dual-layer p-MOSFET gate-stack is studied by physical and electrical measurements along with atomistic simulations. Processes that lead to higher concentrations of Hf and N in IL, measured by angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, result in higher IL hole traps measured by flicker noise in prestress and verified by atomistic simulations. The influence of these process induced preexisting IL hole traps on parametric degradation of p-MOSFETs during Negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) stress is studied. The mechanism responsible for superior NBTI of thermal IL stack, having lower Hf and N content in the IL as compared with Chem-Ox IL stack, is explained.

Keywords

MOSFET; X-ray photoelectron spectra; flicker noise; high-k dielectric thin films; hole traps; negative bias temperature instability; Chem-Ox IL stack; HKMG p-MOSFET; IL hole traps; IL-high-K dual-layer p-MOSFET gate-stack; NBTI; NBTI stress; angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; atomistic simulation; electrical measurement; flicker noise; gate insulator process impact; interlayer hole traps; negative bias temperature instability stress; parametric degradation; physical measurement; process impact; thermal IL stack; Atomic measurements; Hafnium compounds; Logic gates; MOSFET circuits; Noise; Silicon; $V_{rm T}$ shift; Angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (ARXPS); Chem-Ox IL; DCIV; DFT simulations; Negative bias temperature instability (NBTI); flicker noise; high-k metal gate (HKMG); hole traps; thermal Interlayer (IL); trap generation;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2013.2270003

Filename

6555841