NBTI Improvement for pMOS by Cl-contained 1st Oxidation in 20A/65A Dual Nitrided Gate-oxide of 0.13um CMOS technology

摘要

A new method is demonstrated in this paper for improving the NBTI lifetime on pMOS by >3X for I/O (65A) transistors and >2X for core (20A) transistors by using Chlorine (Cl) contained 1st gate oxidation in an advanced dual gate oxide 0.13um CMOS technology. The improvement appears related to the residual Si-Cl bonds on the surface of core and I/O transistor areas (from the Cl-contained 1st oxidation). The transistor beta (as measured by I_(dsat)/(V_g-V_t)~2 at saturation mode) is improved (～10%) on pMOS and degraded slightly (～3%) on nMOS as an evidence for supporting this mechanism