Low temperature gate current and `channel´ hot carriers in MOS transistors

It is demonstrated that the scattering of channel hot carriers cannot explain the temperature dependence of the observed I_G vs. V_G (gate current vs. gate voltage) characteristic in MOS transistors. As a result, drain avalanche hot carriers alone can explain the experimental observations. Since they include both electrons and holes, because of their origin in impact ionization, the whole spectrum of I_G, I_B, and I_D observations can be explained by following impact ionized charges from their generation point to collection at either gate, source, or drain. Finally, though the microscopic, physical basis for gate current is altered by this analysis, the empirical relationships developed by C. Hu (1979) and S. Tam et al. (1984) remain valid, since impact ionization (leading now to both surface and all gate currents) is still explained by lucky-electron concepts