Impact of the strained SiGe source/drain on hot carrier reliability for 45 nm p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors

In this letter, the impact of the uniaxial strain SiGe source/drain (S/D) on hot carrier reliability in 45 nm p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor is investigated in detail. We find that the extra mechanical stress deteriorates the gate oxide and/or generates interface states significantly, resulting in the hot carrier degradation dominantly driven by the drain avalanche hot carrier stress (V_g=1/2V_d), as opposed to the channel hot electron stress (V_g=V_d), the well-known dominant mechanism for hot carrier degradation in the conventional deep submicron devices. A model to explain the mechanism of these observations is proposed.