116

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 45, NO. 1, JANUARY 1998

Positive Bias Temperature Instability in MOSFETs

J. F. Zhang and W. Eccleston
AbstractThe positive bias temperature instability (PBTI) of
submicron MOSFETs has been investigated. It is found that
the PBTI can be as large as the well-known negative bias
temperature instability (NBTI). While the NBTI includes both
interface state generation and positive charge formation in the
gate oxide, the PBTI only exists in the form of donor-like interface
state generation. These donor-like interface states are localized
symmetrically near the source and drain junctions and are
negligible in the middle of the channel. Their dependence on the
stressing electrical field strength and temperature is investigated
and an activation energy of 1.23 eV is extracted. The PBTI
creation follows the first order kinetics and the final saturation
level is fixed by the number of defects available in the device.
The experimental results show that the water- and boron-related
species are two necessary reactants of the electrochemical reaction
leading to the PBTI. Some speculation on the PBTI formation
process is included.

I. INTRODUCTION

NE of the main constraints for scaling down MOSFETs

dimensions is the device instability. Degradation of
MOSFETs can be caused by hot carrier stressing [1][5],
FowlerNordheim tunnelling injection [6][10] and the bias
temperature stressing (BTS) [11][19]. The former two have
been investigated extensively, while the latter has received
relatively less attention, although it is one of the earliest
identified reliability problems. This is not because the bias
temperature instability (BTI) has been fully understood, but
because the BTI in modern MOS integrated circuit has been
greatly reduced empirically. However, recent experimental
results [18] have shown that the BTI can still make a considerable contribution to the degradation of small size MOSFETs.
Further efforts have to be made, therefore, to understand the
BTI phenomenon.
Unlike the hot carrier stressing and FowlerNordheim tunnelling, which can cause degradation both near the SiO /Si
interface [1], [6] and in the bulk of gate oxide [2], [5], [10],
BTS only induces degradation within a tunnelling distance
(e.g., a few millimicrons) of the interface [11], [13]. The
previous work on BTI was mainly carried out under negative
bias temperature stress (NBTS). The instabilities induced by
NBTS appear in two forms: the interface state generation
and the positive charge formation [11][13], [17]. Some researchers [11], [17] reported that the amount of positive charge
generated was approximately the same as that of created
interface states. They suggested that the generated interface
states and positive charges were two products of the same
Manuscript received February 27, 1997; revised May 28, 1997. The review
of this paper was arranged by Editor D. A. Antoniadis.
J. F. Zhang is with the School of Engineering, Liverpool John Moores
University, Liverpool L3 3AF, U.K.
W. Eccleston is with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, U.K.
Publisher Item Identifier S 0018-9383(98)01156-3.

electrochemical reaction [17]. Holes and water related species

have been proposed to be two of the reactants [14], [17], [18].
With regard to generation kinetics, agreement has not been
reached and the existing models include a logarithmic time
dependence [12], [13], a power law [14], and a first order
reaction model [17]. The device structure commonly used is
the MOS capacitor.
There is relatively little information available on positive
bias temperature instability (PBTI). Compared with the negative bias temperature instability (NBTI), the corresponding
PBTI on Al-gated MOS capacitors was found to be negligibly
small [12], [13], [15], if the gate oxide was free of mobile
ions. For p poly-silicon gated MOS devices, considerable
PBTI was observed on the samples prealloyed [20] or
contaminated by the alcohol-like compounds [21], [22]. The
prealloy is an annealing process at 500 C in N before
metal patterning so that aluminum covers the entire device.
Recently, appreciable PBTI has been reported on p polysilicon gated MOS capacitors, which are free of the prealloy
and the contamination [16], [19]. The PBTI can be a source
for the MOS device instability, therefore.
The objective of this paper is to investigate the degradation
of small-size MOSFETs under positive bias temperature stress
(PBTS). It will be shown that considerable donor-like interface
states are generated in MOSFETs under PBTS. Unlike the
NBTI, there is, however, no positive charge formation. The
interface states generated are located symmetrically near the
source and drain junctions and their density is negligible in the
middle of the channel. It is believed that the generation kinetics
follows the first order reaction model, although more than one
time constant has been observed under certain circumstances.
The effects of temperature and electrical field strength on PBTI
are investigated and its origin proposed.
II. DEVICE FABRICATION AND MEASUREMENTS
The MOSFETs used in this paper are of surface channel
and non-LDD. They were fabricated by a twin-tub CMOS
process. The starting material was a 25 cm p-type substrate.
implantation,
The n-well and p-well were made by P and
respectively, to give a surface doping concentration of
cm . Gate oxide was grown in dry oxygen at 1000 C to
a thickness of 18.5 nm. The gate material is n and p
poly-silicon for nMOSFETs and pMOSFETs, respectively.
The source and drain were formed by implanting As for
nMOSFETs and Si/BF for pMOSFETs. A rapid temperature
annealing (1050 C, 21 s. in N ) was used to activate the
doping. No threshold voltage adjustment implantation was
carried out. The source/drain junction depth is 0.23 m.
Following metallization and patterning, a 30 min, 425 C
sinter in forming gas completed the processing sequence. The

00189383/98$10.00 1998 IEEE

ZHANG AND ECCLESTON: POSITIVE BIAS TEMPERATURE INSTABILITY IN MOSFETS

(a)

(b)
Fig. 1. Degradation of pMOSFETs induced by PBTS and NBTS. (a) Effects
of PBTS (200  C, 4 MV/cm, 10 min) on the transfer characteristics of
pMOSFETs. AFresh sample; BPost-PBTS. (b) Effects of NBTS (200
 C, 4 MV/cm, 10 min), followed by PBTS (200  C, 4 MV/cm, 2 min), on
the transfer characteristics of pMOSFETs. AFresh sample; BPost-NBTS
and pre-PBTS; CPost NBTS and PBTS.

effective channel length

of transistors is in the range of
0.919.9 m, as determined by an electrical technique [23].
The channel width
is 20 m. The samples used here are
free of the prealloy and the alcohol-like contamination.
The degradation of MOSFETs is observed from the shift
of transfer characteristic, as shown in Fig. 1(a) and (b). The
measurement was started by recording the initial transfer
characteristic of a MOSFET at
mV and room
temperature. The sample was then transferred to another probe
station with a heated pedestal, which was maintained at a
preset temperature. A dc bias was applied to the gate with
the source, drain and substrate grounded. After a prefixed
time, the sample was cooled down to room temperature and
the transfer characteristic was measured again to determine
the degradation induced by the BTS. The sample cooling,
heating, probing, and transferring between two testing stations
took 60 s approximately, which set the time resolution in
this experiment. The range of temperature and electrical field
strength investigated in this paper is 75 250 C and 1 5
MV/cm, respectively.
III. RESULTS

AND

DISCUSSIONS

A. General Features
After a pMOSFET is stressed at 200 C under an electrical
field of 4 MV/cm for 10 min, its transfer characteristics at

117

mV is compared with that before the PBTS in

Fig. 1(a). A degradation in the slope of the transfer characteristics is clearly observed, which leads to an increased shift of
the characteristic in the negative direction as the magnitude
of drain current increases. The direction of the shift indicates
that the defects are positively charged. The nonparallel nature
of the shift is probably caused by the generation of donorlike interface states in the lower half of energy bandgap, but
a nonuniform distribution of positive charge in the oxide can
also contribute [24]. As shown in Section III-B, the defects
generated are nonuniformly distributed along the channel and
thus, care must be exercised to separate the effect of generated
interface states from that of positive charges in the oxide.
To confirm the observed shift is caused by donor-like
interface state generation alone, NBTS at 4 MV/cm was
carried out on a pMOSFET at the same temperature (200
C), for the same time (10 min). It is well-known that both
positive charge and interface states are created during NBTS
[11][14] and this is also observed in our experiments. The
curves A&B in Fig. 1(b) show that considerable shift occurs
over the whole range of drain current after NBTS. Following
the NBTS, the same pMOSFET was subjected to a subsequent
PBTS at the same temperature. It is found that the PBTS shifts
the transfer characteristics back to its original position at low
drain current, while the shift at high drain current is apparently
increased [see curve
in Fig. 1(b)]. This experiment has
been repeated several times on different samples to ensure
the agreement of transfer characteristics at low drain current
is not a coincidence. The annealing of positive charges under
positive gate bias was also observed in previous work [18],
[25]. These results strongly suggest that positive charges are
not formed under PBTS and, instead, PBTS annihilates the
positive charges induced by other kinds of stresses. We therefore conclude that the degradation observed in Fig. 1(a) under
PBTS is due to donor-like interface state generation alone and
PBTS does not induce positive oxide charges. Since the shift
at low drain current (post PBTS) is negligible, the donor-like
interface states are located in the lower half of the energy bandgap, in agreement with the earlier observation [26]. During
the operation of pMOSFETs, the region near the drain can be
biased positively when
, so the PBTI reported here
will contribute to the degradation of pMOSFETs.
It is generally believed that the created donor-like and
acceptor-like interface states are located in the lower and
upper half of the energy bandgap, respectively [26]. Thus, the
generated donor-like and acceptor-like interface states are only
charged during the operation of pMOSFET and nMOSFET,
respectively. To determine the generated interface states across
the whole energy bandgap, PBTS should be performed on both
pMOSFETs and nMOSFETs.
A PBTS (200 C, 4 MV/cm, 10 min) was performed on
a nMOSFET. Fig. 2(a) shows that the slope degradation of
its transfer characteristics is negligible. Thus, PBTS does not
create acceptor-like interface states in nMOSFETs. It can be
seen from Fig. 2(a) that the transfer characteristics is shifted
slightly positively, indicating negative charge formation in the
oxide. This is believed to result from the electron trapping in
the oxide [5], [10]. The electrons probably reach the traps in

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 45, NO. 1, JANUARY 1998

(a)

Fig. 3. The transient behavior of PBTS induced pMOSFETs degradation

W=Le ;
measured at different drain current levels. Id = 1 A
Id = 0:1 A W=Le ; Id = 10 nA W=Le .

(b)
Fig. 2. Degradation of nMOSFETs induced by PBTS and NBTS. (a) Effects
of PBTS (200  C, 4 MV/cm, 10 min) on the transfer characteristics of
nMOSFETs. AFresh sample; BPost-PBTS. (b) Effects of NBTS (200
 C, 4 MV/cm, 10 min) on the transfer characteristics of nMOSFETs.
AFresh sample; BPost-NBTS.

the oxide by direct tunnelling [17], [27], but some injection

over the potential barrier cannot be ruled out. The reason for
the absence of such an electron trapping in pMOSFETs under
the same PBTS is believed to be the lack of a space charge
region near the SiO /Si interface since the SiO /Si interface
is now in accumulation [28].
For comparison, the degradation of nMOSFETs under
NBTS is shown in Fig. 2(b). The transfer characteristic at low
drain current level (e.g., 10 A) is shifted negatively because of the positive charge formation. However, the direction
of the shift is reversed at high drain current, indicating the
creation of acceptor-like interface states. In a recent model
developed by Blat et al. [17], it was proposed that holes were
required for the electrochemical reaction leading to NBTI. The
involvement of holes was also suggested by Doyle [18]. The
present results indicate that the presence of holes near the
SiO /Si interface is essential for the positive charge formation
and the interface state generation in nMOSFETs, which
supports the above model. However, holes are not needed for
the creation of donor-like interface states under PBTS. It is
therefore believed that the electrochemical reaction for PBTI is
different from that for NBTI. In the following, we concentrate
on the donor-like interface state generation under PBTS.
The generated interface states result in different gate volt, at different drain current, , as shown in
age shifts,
measured
Fig. 1(a). It is important to know whether the


0

at different
has the similar qualitative behavior. The
measured at three different drain current levels is plotted
against the PBTS time in Fig. 3 and against the effective
channel length in Fig. 4. In both cases, the
recorded
at different
exhibits similar qualitative features, although
magnitudes are different. This allows us to concentrate on
measured at a particular . In the following, only
the
the
measured at
A
is presented to
comply with some of the previous work [29]. It should be
emphasised that the
measured here is not the shift of the
traditionally extrapolated threshold voltage, . At
A
, the
is actually measured with
in this paper.
B. Location of the Generated Donor-Like Interface States
To study the location of generated interface states, we performed PBTS on pMOSFETs with different channel lengths
in the range of 0.919.9 m. The gate voltage shift is shown in
Fig. 4. As
increases,
decreases monotonously. There
are three possible explanations for this decrease
is Larger for
1) The Created Interface State Density
Smaller
: For MOSFETs of different
used here,
the sources/drains were fabricated by the same process and
were stressed under the same condition. The degradation
near the junctions will be independent of
, therefore.
Near the centre of the channel, the degradation can change
with
, if there is a potential variation along the channel.
However, under current PBTS conditions, the substrate was
kept in accumulation and both the source and the drain were
grounded. There is no potential drop along the channel and the
.
degradation in the central region is also independent of
As a result, this explanation can be ruled out.
is Uniformly Distributed Along the Channel and
2) The
is the Same for Different
, but it can Cause a Larger
for Smaller
: It has been shown in Fig. 1(a) that the

ZHANG AND ECCLESTON: POSITIVE BIAS TEMPERATURE INSTABILITY IN MOSFETS

119

Fig. 5. A schematic diagram showing the nonuniform degradation of MOSFETs under PBTS.

Fig. 4. Dependence of the PBTI on the effective channel length. The drain
current levels used for measuring Vg are given below. Id
: A W=Le ; Id
nA W=Le .
A W=Le ; Id

1
= 00 1 2


= 01
= 010 2

depends on the measurement . Thus, the effect of

on
must be properly taken into account when
is measured.
on
has been
In this paper, the possible effect of
at a fixed
.
removed by measuring the
is Nonuniformly Distributed: Although
the
3) The
stressing field is uniform along the channel, the degradation
near the junctions can be different from that near the channel
centre, because of the possible difference in defect density.
To simplify the discussion, we divide a MOSFET into the
, central region
, and drain region
source region,
, as shown in Fig. 5. As a first order approximation,
is assumed to be constant within each region and is
the
,
, and
for the source, central,
represented by
and drain regions, respectively. For MOSFETs of different
, since the junctions were the same and were stressed
,
,
and
will be
under the same condition,
. For shorter channel,
independent of
increases and the degradation in the junction regions will
. The relative importance
make a larger contribution to
decreases for shorter
of the central region reduces, since
. If we assume
and
, it will lead to the
for shorter
, as observed in Fig. 4.
rapid increase in
The only satisfactory explanation for the dependence of
on
shown in Fig. 4 is a nonuniform distribution
with
and
.
of
To support the above claim, we studied the dependence of
on the
used for the transfer characteristic measurein this paper is measured at
ment. Since the
with the substrate near the source in strong inversion, the
defects generated in all three regions contribute to the
by reducing the carrier mobility and changing . As the
increases, the drain space charge region
measurement
extends toward the source and the channel will be pinched
, as shown in Fig. 5. Part of the degraded region
off at
is now covered by the space
near the drain
on
charge region. The effect of defects in

Fig. 6. Effects of drain voltage used for the transfer characteristic measurement on Vg after PBTS (200  C, 4 MV/cm, 10 min). OForward mode;
Reverse mode by interchanging the source and drain.

is negligible since they are screened by space charges. Thus,

the effective drain degradation region is reduced from
to
. This leads to the initial reduction of
, as shown
V, the whole
is covered by
in Fig. 6. When
the drain space charge region and a further increase in
starts reducing the central region, . The saturation behavior
, so that a reduction in the
in Fig. 6 indicates
central region affects
little. The
does not reduce
, because of the degradation near the
to zero at high
source. Thus, the two experiments shown in Figs. 4 and 6 lead
to the same conclusion that the degradation is nonuniformly
and
.
distributed with
induced by PBTS on
is similar
The dependence of
to that caused by hot carrier stressing [4], [5]. This indicates
that the defect locations near the junctions are comparable in
these two cases (in a range of 0.15 m near the junction [30],

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 45, NO. 1, JANUARY 1998

[31]). Furthermore, the good agreement of the data measured

in the forward and reverse (interchanging the source and drain)
modes indicates that the
is symmetric at the source and
drain junctions (i.e.,
). This is what we expected
since both junctions were subjected to the same PBTS here.
C. The Kinetics of Generation and Field Activation
A number of generation kinetics have been proposed for
the interfacial instabilities. These include a power law [14], a
logarithmic time dependence of
[12], [13], and a first
order kinetic model with a single time constant [17]. The
under PBTS at 150 C is shown in
dynamic behavior of
Fig. 7 with the stressing field strength, , as a parameter. At
relatively high field, the
increases with the stressing time
initially and reaches a saturation value of 1 V approximately at
longer time. Neither the power law nor the logarithmic models
predict the saturation of
with time and so can be ruled
out. The first order model does predict a saturation of
and will be considered in details below.
As to be shown in Section III-E, the PBTI formation requires
water related species. After an interface state is generated, the
water related species may be released. The release of water
(or hydrogen) related species has been reported during other
stresses, such as electron injection [28], [32] and NBTS [14],
[17]. As a result, although the detailed electrochemical reaction
for PBTI is unknown, its general form can be assumed as

(a)

where (Si, H, B) is a complex consisting of silicon, hydrogen

and boron atoms, whose structure is unknown. The Si represents the created interface state. If (R1) follows the first order
kinetics, we have
(1)
where
is the generation time constant and
is the
saturation level fixed by the number of defects available in the
device. If we set
at the experimental saturation value of
approximately 1 V, becomes the only adjustable parameter
when the experimental data at each
are fitted with (1).
By using the least square criteria [10], the fitted curves are
shown in Fig. 7(a) as the solid lines. The agreement between
the theory and the experiments is fairly good at relatively
high (i.e., 4 MV/cm), but becomes poor as decreases.
To improve the prediction at lower , the model has to be
modified in two aspects as explained below.
1) A Recombination Process Should be Taken Into Account:
After a hydrogen species is released in the reaction of (R1), it
can recombine with Si , which is a reverse process of (R1)
If we assume the recombination time constant is
equation can be written as [33]

, the rate

(b)
Fig. 7. The dynamic behavior of PBTI under different electrical field
MV/cm; F
MV/cm; F
strength, F . OF
MV/cm; F
MV/cm; F
MV/cm. (a) Comparison
between the experimental data (points) and the results of first order reaction
model with a single time constant. The solid lines are fitted curves using
(1). (b) Comparison between the experimental data (points) and the results
of first order reaction model with two time constants. The solid lines are
fitted curves using (4).

= +5
= +2

= +4
= +1

= +3

where
. When a dynamic balance between (R1) and
(R2) is reached, the saturation level is
(3)

Solving the above equation, we have

(2)

It should be noted that the saturation level due to the

dynamic balance,
, depends on the ratio of the generation
and recombination time constant.

ZHANG AND ECCLESTON: POSITIVE BIAS TEMPERATURE INSTABILITY IN MOSFETS

THE FITTING PARAMETERS

TABLE I
DATA SHOWN IN FIG. 7 (150  C)

FOR THE

AND

(4)

121

process. For 125 C

175 C, the data in Fig. 8(a) (i.e.,
the symbol o, , and ) show that the
saturates
and the saturation level is independent of the temperature. In
this case, the behavior of
can be described well by the
first order kinetics with a single time constant (1). However,
for
C [see the symbol and , in Fig. 8(a)],
it can be seen that an initial fast process is revealed and thus,
two time constants are required, as given by the expression
(5)

V and is the time constant of

where
the slow generation process. The fitted
, and for each
are given in Table I and the fitted curves are shown as the
solid lines in Fig. 7(b). As increases, the generation rate is
enhanced and the saturation level reached due to the dynamic
balance,
, also increased, as predicted by (3). When
MV/cm, however,
occurs and
, which
is fixed by the number of defects available in the device. A
further increase of will not enhance
anymore, but will
continue reducing
and lead to an earlier saturation. The
slower process becomes redundant here since
already.

, , and
are
Using (5), the fitted
given in Table II. It is worth of pointing out that, although
the values of
and
are fitted, they are unique,
since they are independent of the guessed initial input values.
The data shows that
is less than 3% of
and
is not sensitive to temperature. Although the detailed
physical processes are not known, we can make the following
speculations.
For electron or hole trapping in the oxide, it is well known
that different defects have, for constant injection current, different time constants for charge capture [10], [34]. Similarly,
the two time constants extracted for
may arise from two
different types of defects. Both of them can be converted into
the interface states under PBTS and their saturation values
are determined by the number of each defect available. This
is supported by the observation that both saturation levels are
not sensitive to the temperature, as shown in Table II. Because
of the relatively low
( 30 mV) and the time resolution
( 60 s) of present measurement, the initial fast process can
not be measured properly for
C.
The activation energy of ,
, can be estimated by
assuming
, where
is a constant. The
Arrhenius plot of
against
follows a straight line
well [see Fig. 8(b)]. The slope of this line gives an
of 1.23
eV, which is comparable with the upper limit of the activation
energy reported for NBTI
eV, [13], [14], [18]). We
do not have sufficient data to give a reliable
for .
2) At Relatively High Temperature,
175 C: Fig. 8(c)
shows the behavior of
against the PBTS time for
C. Compared with
C, two main differences are
observed.
a) The
decreases, instead of increasing, during the
initial stressing period ( 10 s): This indicates that some
annealing process different from the reaction (R2) becomes important at higher temperature, since the kinetics
based on reactions (R1) and (R2) [see (2)] does not
predict a decrease of
with time.
b)
falls as the temperature increases: Here, an increase
in enhances the annealing rate more than the generation rate. The generation kinetics becomes more complex
and a detailed study of it is beyond the scope of this
paper.

D. Thermal Activation of PBTI

E. The Origin of PBTI

1) At Relatively Low Temperature,

175 C: The
dynamic behavior of
at different temperature is given in
Fig. 8(a). It is apparent that the PBTI is a thermally activated

The interfacial instabilities of SiO /Si system have been

attributed to the water (or hydrogen) related species in previous
work [14], [17], [19]. To check whether the PBTI observed

TABLE II
THE FITTING PARAMETERS FOR THE DATA
SHOWN IN FIG. 8(a) ( 4 MV/cm) AND (5)

2) There are Two Generation Processes with Very Different

Rates: The experimental data at 2 MV/cm tend to have two
saturation levels, indicating there are two generation processes
at very different rate. The nature of the relatively slow process
is not clear, but some speculations can be made. When the
dynamic balance between (R1) and (R2) is reached, there are
a certain number of H atoms available at the interface (see
reaction R1). These H atoms are mobile and can be gradually
lost by moving away from the interface. A decrease in the
number of H atoms at the interface reduces the recombination
rate of (R2), which in turn leads to
. Eventually,
all H atoms released by interface state generation are removed
and the recombination rate of (R2) becomes zero. As a result,
reaches
. The change rate of
between
and
is controlled by this slow process. The kinetics now
becomes
(4)

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 45, NO. 1, JANUARY 1998

(a)

(b)

(c)

 75

Fig. 8. The effects of PBTS temperature on the degradation. (a) The thermal activation of PBTI at relatively low temperature (T
1  C). The solid
 C; T
 C; T
 C; T
 C; T
 C. (b) The Arrhenius plot of
lines are the fitted curves using (5). OT
A
E=E0 , where A is a constant. (c) The thermal activation of PBTI
time constant t1 . The solid line is the fitted curve with the expression of t1
 C) OT
 C; T
 C; T
 C.
at relatively high temperature (T

 175

= 175

= 150
= 175 +


= 125
= exp(
= 200 2

here is also connected with the water species, we perform the

following experiments:
:
1) Annealing the Sample at 425 C for 30 Min in Dry
The MOSFETs used here were not properly encapsulated
and protected from the ambient (see Section II). Thus, it is
possible that water species have diffused into the devices after
fabrication. Annealing in a neutral ambient will remove them.
After the annealing, the PBTS was performed again and it was
became negligible, compared with that before
found that
the annealing, as shown by the curve in Fig. 9.

= 100
)
= 250

= 75

2) Diffusing Water Species into the MOSFETs at 200

C: To confirm that the water species are essential for PBTI
formation, we attempt to reintroduce the water-related species
into the annealed MOSFETs. The experimental apparatus
used is similar to that of Nicollian et al. [28], and is shown
schematically in Fig. 10. Nitrogen gas saturated with water
vapor was produced by bubbling through water maintained at a
constant temperature of 72 C. The sample was exposed to wet
nitrogen in a thermal furnace at 200 C. The total pressure was
slightly above atmospheric pressure and the partial pressure

ZHANG AND ECCLESTON: POSITIVE BIAS TEMPERATURE INSTABILITY IN MOSFETS

Fig. 9. The dependence of instabilities induced by PBTS (200  C, 4

MV/cm, 2 min) on water species. The sample was annealed at 425  C for
30 min in dry nitrogen gas before this experiment. AFresh sample. The
transfer characteristic of a MOSFET after the PBTS is indistinguishable from
the curve A before the MOSFET is exposed to wet nitrogen gas. Bpost
PBTS on a MOSFET exposed to wet nitrogen gas at 200  C for 90 min.
The partial pressure of water vapor is 255 torr. Cpost PBTS on a MOSFET
exposed to wet nitrogen gas at 200  C for 240 min.

Fig. 10.

The apparatus used for introducing water species into MOSFETs.

of water vapor was approximately 255 torr. After a prefixed

time, the sample was removed from the furnace and PBTS
was performed.
The results in Fig. 9 show that the PBTI is re-introduced
after exposing to wet nitrogen. A longer exposure time results
in a higher PBTI. Thus, it is concluded that the PBTI can only
be formed if the water-related species are present.
To explore the PBTI formation further, it is noted that the
water species is a necessary, but not the sufficient, condition
for PBTI. For example, in a damp Al-gated MOS capacitor,
the PBTI is usually much weaker than the NBTI [12], [13],
[15]. Boron-related species were identified to be responsible
for PBTI in other investigations [21], [35]. This is supported
by our observation that donor-like interface states are only
generated in pMOSFETs. Thus, the PBTI requires the simultaneous presence of boron- and water-related species. It
was also reported that boron-related defects could enhance the
moisture retention [36], [37]. The boron- and water-related
species may be connected, forming a complex which is the
origin of the PBTI through reaction (R1).
PBTI observed earlier, on MOS capacitors [16], [19],
was uniformly distributed at the SiO /Si interface, while the
present PBTI observed on MOSFETs is localized near the
source/drain junctions. There are two possible explanations for
this nonuniform distribution. The first is that the water-related
species diffuse into the MOSFETs from the gate edge. As a

123

result, their concentration is much higher near the source/drain

junctions. The second explanation is that the density of boronrelated defects is much higher near the source/drain junctions.
The ion implantation used in the junction fabrication may
damage the nearby SiO /Si interface by forming boron-related
defects. Although the electrical effects of the defect can
be eradicated by the subsequent annealing, the structure of
annealed SiO /Si interface can be different from that before
the damage, because of the presence of the boron. Once
combined with water species, the boron-related defects can
readily be converted into donor-like interface states by PBTS.
This is supported by the observation that an irradiated and then
annealed sample was more susceptible to BTS than a sample
never subjected to the irradiation [12]. Further investigation
is needed.
IV. CONCLUSION
Substantial PBTI is observed in pMOSFETs. Its effects
increase as the channel length reduces. The results of this paper
lead to the following conclusions.
1) While NBTS generates both interface states and positive
charges, only donor-like interface state generation is
observed under PBTS.
2) The generated donor-like interface states are nonuniformly distributed along the channel. They are localized
symmetrically near the source and drain junctions and
are negligible in the middle of the channel.
3) As the PBTS time increases, the generated interface
states saturate at a fixed level, determined by the number
of defects available.
4) Generation follows a first order reaction model, although
more than one kind of physical processes or defects may
contribute.
5) The generation rates increase as electrical field strength
or temperature increases and an activation energy of 1.23
eV has been found.
6) In the electrochemical reaction of PBTI, water- and
boron-related species are the two necessary reactants, but
holes are not involved. Thus, the PBTI electrochemical
reaction is different from that of NBTI.
The water species probably reside on boron related sites,
which could be formed during the source/drain fabrication
process. Although normally electrically inactive, they can
cause the instability observed under PBTS. To suppress this
instability, the species must be carefully controlled by proper
annealing and passivation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. K. Barlow of GEC
Plessey Semiconductor Ltd. for the supply of devices and Dr.
S. Taylor of Liverpool University for useful discussions.
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J. F. Zhang received the B.Sc. degree in electrical

engineering from the Xian Jiao Tong University,
Xian, China, in 1982, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Liverpool University,
Liverpool, U.K., in 1987.
From 1986 to 1992, he was a Senior Research
Assistant at the University of Liverpool, where he
worked on the dielectric recovery of plasma in
accelerating gas flow, plasma processing of semiconductors and the reliability of MOS devices. In
1992, he joined the Liverpool John Moores University as a Senior Lecturer, where he is currently a Reader. His present research
interests include the quality assessment of VLSI devices and application
specific IC design.

W. Eccleston received the Ph.D. degree from

London University, London, U.K.
He joined Plessey Research Laboratories,
Caswell, subsequently becoming MOS and Bipolar
Project Managers. He was appointed Lecturer at
Liverpool University, Liverpool, U.K., in 1971 and,
subsequently, Professor, Head of Department, and
Dean. He leads a group of 35 people working
on device aspects of Si, Si-Ge, SiC, SiO2 , C, and
conjugated polymers. He has authored or coauthored
120 papers and holds 19 patents.