Hot Carrier and Negative-Bias Temperature Instability Reliabilities of Strained-Si MOSFETs

In this brief, the I-V characteristics and reliability degradations for both bulk-Si and strained-Si with relaxed SixGe1-x buffer devices have been fully characterized. The hot carrier degradation in strained-Si nMOSFET devices is more severe than that in bulk-Si ones, suggesting higher impact ionization current and higher defect densities in the SiO2/strained-Si interface. On the other hand, enhanced degradation of negative bias temperature instability is observed for strained-Si pMOSFET devices compared to control pMOSFET devices, indicating a large number of interface traps in the strained-Si device.