Stress Sensitivity of PMOSFET Under High Mechanical Stress

Using PMOSFETs with a range of built-in process induced stress and four-point bending characterization, we present evidence that the stress response of PMOSFETs increases with channel stress. A novel method incorporating the characterization data with channel stress simulation has been developed which shows excellent agreement between our prediction and measured transistor performance data for nitride etch stop layer splits. Our analysis indicates that PMOSFETs will continue to show increasingly effective performance enhancement at higher channel stress.