RF performance degradation in pMOS transistors due to hot carrier and soft breakdown effects

Abstract

Hot carrier and soft breakdown stress on pMOS RF devices has been examined. The cut-off frequency and the S-parameters degrade with stress. The measured threshold voltage shifts negatively and mobility decreases after stress. It is our understanding that this is the first attempt to investigate hot carrier and soft breakdown effects on RF performance of pMOS transistors and first reporting of negative shift in threshold voltage.