Dynamic-stress-induced enhanced degradation of 1/f noise in n-MOSFET's

Abstract

AC-stress-induced degradation of 1/f noise is investigated for n-MOSFET's with thermal oxide or nitrided oxide as gate dielectric, and the physical mechanisms involved are analyzed. It is found that the degradation of 1/f noise under ac stress is far more serious than that under dc stress. For an ac stress of VG = 0 approx. 0.5 VD, generations of both interface state (ΔDit) and neutral electron traps (ΔNet) are responsible for the increase of 1/f noise, with the former being dominant. For another ac stress of VG = 0 approx. VD, a large increase of 1/f noise is observed for the thermal-oxide device, and is attributed to enhanced ΔNet and generation of another specie of electron traps, plus a small amount of ΔDit. Moreover, under the two types of ac stress conditions, much smaller degradation of 1/f noise is observed for the nitrided device due to considerably improved oxide/Si interface and near-interface oxide qualities associated with interfacial nitrogen incorporation.