Reliability degradation of MOS transistors originated from plasma process-induced charging of circuit blocks and detected with fWLR methods

The effect of plasma process induced charging of remote circuit blocks and consequently the reliability damage on a single MOS transistor which is connected to such a circuit block is demonstrated for the first time. Traditional methods of characterizing gate electrode antennas do not cover this topic. A new product relevant plasma-induced damage test structure type is introduced as well as a new definition of the antenna ratio to describe the damage potential of a circuit block. This investigation is carried out for a standard 130nm bulk-Si technology with a deep trench process.