New Findings on Hot Carrier Effects in Bulk Silicon MOSFETs

Hot-carrier currents and degradation for MOSFETs with gate length from 0.8¿m down to 0.1 ¿m are studied The variations of substrate and gate currents are investigated in a wide voltage range (drain, gate, substrate). The results show that the physical mechanisms responsible for these two currents are substantially different. The substrate current is created by low energy carriers heated by the pinch-off electric field, whereas the gate current is induced by high energy carriers due to the secondary heating at the drain-substrate junction. Finally, the correlation between photon emission phenomena and substrate current, and, between hot-carrier-induced degradation and gate current are underlined.