Demonstration of sufficient BTI reliability for a 14-nm finFET 1.8 V I/O technology featuring a thick ALD SiO2 IL and Ge p-channel

1.8-V I/O transistors were fabricated in a 14-nm bulk finFET technology, using 2-3nm Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) SiO
₂
in a high-k/metal gate stack. PBTI characterization showed negligible degradation at the operating V
_dd
, with nFET VOV
_max
exceeding 2.2V. The pFET counterparts however, showed poor reliability, ascribed to a high defect density in the ALD SiO2 as compared to standard chemical or thermal oxide. To boost the NBTI reliability, we propose the use of a Ge channel for the I/O pfinFET to reduce the interaction of channel holes with the ALD SiO
₂
defects. This allows to demonstrate pFET BTI reliability on par with the Si-channel nFET counterpart.