Hot carrier evaluation of MOSFETs in ULSI circuits using the photon emission method

Photon emission from MOSFETs by hot carrier effect under AC operation is studied. A method to estimate the lifetime of MOSFETs in LSI chips, which uses the photon emission, is proposed. This method is based on experimental data showing that the lifetime of hot-carrier degradation is described by a universal curve with respect to the photon count at a wavelength of 200 nm. Quantitative estimations of lifetimes of MOSFETs in a real LSI are reported. This method is applied to the lifetime estimation of a CMOS microprocessor.<
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