Improved Degradation and Recovery Characteristics of SiGe p-Channel Metal--Oxide--Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors under Negative-Bias Temperature Stress

This paper describes the degradation and recovery characteristics of SiGe pMOSFETs with a high-k/metal gate stack under negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI) stress. The threshold voltage instability (Delta V-th) of SiGe pMOSFETs shows an increased percentage of recovery (R) as well as lower degradation than those of control Si pMOSFETs. It is found that the recovery characteristics of SiGe and Si pMOSFETs have similar dependencies on various stress conditions, and the increased R of SiGe pMOSFETs is mainly attributed to their lower degradation characteristic. Under real operating conditions, most of the Delta V-th caused by hole trapping would be rapidly recovered through a fast recovery process, and newly-generated interface traps during the stress would determine the degradation level of V-th. The SiGe pMOSFETs show lower stress-induced interface traps; thus, they would display more reliable NBTI characteristics than Si pMOSFETs under real operating conditions. (C) 2013 The Japan Society of Applied Physics