Unified Perspective of NBTI and Hot-Carrier Degradation in CMOS using on-the-Fly Bias Patterns

Abstract

This work views NBTI and various conditions of channel hot carrier (CHC) degradation in PMOS and NMOS devices from a unified perspective. This is accomplished by a novel technique using sequential application of stress biases and monitoring the degradation on-the-fly. Thereby, we are able to observe and segregate the distinct mechanisms co-existing during a particular condition of degradation. In particular, we gain critical insights into recovery phenomena, which are observed during certain conditions of CHC degradation (Mistry et al., 1991) as well as during NBTI (Rangan, 2003). These findings set the stage for consistent physical models for degradation as well as for design simulation under multiple operating modes