Observation of hot-carrier-induced nFET gate-oxide breakdown in dynamically stressed CMOS circuits

摘要

Subjecting a ring oscillator circuit with short-channel thin-oxide FETs to dynamic stress results in the majority of nFET and pFET drain-side gate-oxide breakdowns. The enhancement in the drain-side breakdowns, which are potentially the most detrimental to circuit operation, is shown to be induced in nFETs by channel hot carriers.