Impact of HfSiON Induced Flicker Noise on Scaling of Future Mixed-Signal CMOS

It is shown for the first time that HfSiON gate dielectric thickness has a strong impact on the flicker (1/f) noise of devices with L
_g
< 1mum. We have developed a simple model for both gate length (L
_g
) and HfSiON thickness dependences of N-FET flicker noise, based on excess traps at the gate-edges. P-FET noise does not exhibit such strong dependences. Scaling of future analog devices with high-k gate stack may be limited by noise considerations