Reduced Hot-Carrier Induced Degradation of NMOS I/O Transistors with Sub-micron Source-Drain Diffusion Length for 0.11 µm Dual Gate Oxide CMOS Technology

The effect of reduced source-drain diffusion length (Lov) on hot-carrier induced degradation of NMOS I/O transistors using 0.11 µm dual gate oxide (DGO) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology will be reported. An understanding of hot-carrier induced degradation would be very important for modern DGO CMOS integrated circuits. And since hot carrier degradation is usually more serious in n-channel metal oxide semiconductor (NMOS) transistors, we will focus our discussion on the effect of Lov reduction on hot-carrier induced degradation in n-channel thick gate oxide I/O MOS transistors. It is discovered that as Lov decreases, which then gives rise to compressive strain in the channel region of the transistor, hot-carrier induced degradation in NMOS I/O transistors is reduced. Direct-current current-voltage (DCIV) spectrum suggests that no additional interface traps (ΔNit) generation or charge trapping was created when using shorter Lovs.