MOSFET hot-carrier reliability improvement by forward-body bias

Active threshold voltage V_TH control via well-substrate biasing can be utilized to satisfy International Roadmap for Semiconductors performance and standby power requirements for CMOS technology beyond the hp65-nm node. In this letter, the impact of substrate bias V_SUB on hot-carrier reliability is presented. The impact varies with the gate length and body effect factor. These findings are explained, and the effects of future scaling are discussed using a quasi-two-dimensional model. Significant and important improvement in hot-carrier lifetime with forward-bias V_SUB can be expected for deeply scaled CMOS devices, making it an attractive method for extending the scalability of bulk-Si transistor technology.