Deuterium sintering of CMOS technology for improved hot carrier reliability

摘要

It has been found that deuterium (D) instead of hydrogen (H) can be used to greatly strengthen the resistance of metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistors against hot carrier induced degradation. We have applied the new deuterium sintering process to CMOS technology and have obtained significantly improved hot carrier reliability resulting from the isotope effect. We will present a summary of these lifetime improvements from five different transistor structures of five different manufacturers, as well as the physical and electrical characterizations of the deuterium sintering process.