Comprehensive Study of Non-Conducting Stress Characteristics in Ultra-Scaled FinFET

In this work, a comprehensive study of device characteristics shift induced by non-conducting stress (NCS) is presented. Additionally, the unique recovery behavior of NCS is revealed in detail by silicon data. Through experiments, the mechanism of NCS can be separated to three parts: (1) permanent interface traps caused by impact ionization, (2) recoverable HK/IL traps and (3) recoverable oxide charge by band-to-band-tunneling. Also, geometry plays an important role for NCS performance. A longer gate length shows a better NCS performance. Finally, we verify that the optimizing quality of interface between drain and gate can result in a better NCS performance. Furthermore, the device characteristics shifts by NCS can be compensated by other reliability items in the real circuit operation.