The Correct Hot Carrier Degradation Model

A model for the apparent negative activation energy that is observed when measuring hot carrier degradation has alluded the reliability physics community for several decades. The phenomenon is observed from changes in threshold voltage and mobility degradation and has been distinct from negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) in that the effect consistently increases with lower temperature. This effect is so consistent that an actual negative activation energy can be measured and has been reported from -0.1 to -0.4eV. We propose a model that considers the energetics of HCI that allows the mechanism to be modeled consistently for Silicon and GaN.