Bias dependence in statistical random telegraph noise analysis based on nanoscale CMOS ring oscillators

Random Telegraph Noise (RTN) is one of the major reliability concerns in nanoscale complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies. In this paper, we discuss the characterization of RTN in 40nm CMOS technology using Ring Oscillators (ROSCs). We used different types of ROSCs to study the temporal and spectral characteristics of the RTN. We conducted measurements on one of the arrays with 128 identical ROSC cells. These results enabled statistical characterization of the RTN amplitude strength and its frequency characteristics in different supply voltage variations from 0.5V to 0.7V. At power supply of 0.65V, dominant and observable RTN amplitude above 0.37% Delta f/f(mean) is found in 60% of cells in the array. Further, the capture and emission time constant tau(e//c) can be extracted from the measurements, the values observed ranging from 0.2 mu s to 10 ms.