Impact of Channel Thickness on the NBTI Behaviors in the Ge-OI pMOSFETs With Al₂O₃/GeO_x Gate Stacks

Abstract

The impact of channel thickness on the negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI) behaviors has been studied for the Germanium-on-Insulator (Ge-OI) pMOSFETs. It is found that the permanent and recoverable defects are generated simultaneously during the NBTI stress of Ge-OI pMOSFETs. The lower NBTI is confirmed for the Ge-OI pMOSFETs with a thinner channel, due to the reduction of the band bending of ${\mathrm{ E}}_{\mathrm{ v}}$ under a fixed electrical field of NBTI stress. Thus, the channel thickness scaling could be an effective method to improve the NBTI reliability for Ge-OI pMOSFETs.

Keywords

• Germanium-on-Insulator (Ge-OI)
• metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET)
• negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI)