Mechanism and process dependence of negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) for pMOSFETs with ultrathin gate dielectrics

This work mainly focuses on the NBTI (Negative Bias Temperature Instability) mechanism and investigates the degree of degradation caused by NBTI stress for different gate dielectrics, including thermally-grown and heavily-nitrided oxide films. The capability of our model has been demonstrated by excellent agreement between the fitted curves and experiments for ultrathin gate dielectrics (1.7 nm - 3.3 nm) fabricated by different processes. Among the various gate dielectrics under consideration, RPN (remote plasma nitrided oxide) is most resistant to NBTI stress.