Decoupling of cold-carrier effects in hot-carrier reliability assessment of HfO/sub 2/ gated nMOSFETs

To understand the intrinsic effect of a hot-carrier injection on high-/spl kappa/ dielectrics free from concurrent cold-carrier trapping, the authors have investigated a hot-carrier-induced damage with channel hot-carrier stresses and substrate hot-carrier stress. Compared to substrate hot-carrier stress, the channel hot-carrier stress shows a more significant cold-carrier-injection effect. By using a detrapping bias, they were able to decouple the effect of cold-carrier trapping from the permanent trap generation induced by the hot-carrier injection. As channel hot-carrier stress bias was reduced, a portion of cold-carrier trapping increased and a portion of interface trap generation decreased.