A VCO test structure for characterizing AC hot-carrier degradation

Author

Koike, Nor ; Tatsuuma, Kenichiro

Author_Institution

Kyoto Res. Lab., Matsushita Electron. Corp., Kyoto, Japan

fYear

1996

fDate

20-23 Oct 1996

Firstpage

62

Lastpage

65

Abstract

A test structure applying a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) has been evaluated for investigating AC hot-carrier degradation. Degradation of output and inner waveforms and photon emission have been investigated by using an oscilloscope, an electron beam tester, a photon emission analyzer and a reliability simulator. Amplitude decrease of the inner waveforms due to channel resistance increase of the NMOSFETs in the VCO ring oscillator was observed and simulated as well as oscillation frequency decrease. It is made clear that a large stress was applied to the NMOSFET at the first CMOS inverter of the output buffer, which was caused by gate voltages given by a VCO inner waveform swinging around a large stressing point

Keywords

MOS digital integrated circuits; VLSI; electron beam testing; hot carriers; integrated circuit reliability; integrated circuit testing; voltage-controlled oscillators; AC hot-carrier degradation; NMOSFETs; VCO test structure; VLSI; electron beam tester; gate voltages; inner waveforms; oscillation frequency decrease; output buffer; output waveforms; photon emission analyzer; reliability simulator; stressing point; Analytical models; Degradation; Electron beams; Frequency; Hot carriers; MOSFETs; Oscilloscopes; Ring oscillators; Testing; Voltage-controlled oscillators;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Integrated Reliability Workshop, 1996., IEEE International

Conference_Location

Lake Tahoe, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3598-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IRWS.1996.583385

Filename

583385