Incidence of oxide and interface degradation on MOSFET performance

In this work, we have studied how oxide and interface degradation affect the performance of MOSFETs with ultrathin gate oxide, in terms of transconductance (g(m)), saturation drain current (I-ds,(SAT)), and threshold voltage (V-th) before soft breakdown and hard breakdown. MOSFET transconductance and drain current decrease due to oxide traps which act as interface state reducing channel carrier mobility and enhancing the drain current noise. We found strong correlation between these traps and the well-known stress induced leakage current (SILC) indicating that the same traps producing the degradation of MOSFET characteristics are those involved in SILC conduction. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.