Modelling of the Hot-Carrier Degradation Behaviour of Submicron nMOSFETs making use of High-Resolution Measurements

Abstract

This thesis deals with the study of the reliability of one specific type of electronic component, the Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect-Transistor (MOSFET). MOSFETs have been in use since the beginning of the sixties. They have several advantages: The LOCOS (Local Oxidation of Silicon) isolation enables the separation of devices. The structure has superb scaling possibilities . The use of n-type and p-type devices on the same substrate allows building circuits with complementary MOS structures (CMOS), which results in ultra-low power consumption. These advantages have made the MOSFET the basic building block of semiconductor very-large-scale integration (VLSI) and ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI) products, such as memory cells and microprocessors. ...