Comprehensive study of hot-carrier stress in n-type logic CMOS devices at temperatures down to the deep-cryogenic regime

Cryo-CMOS devices are becoming increasingly important for quantum computing applications, but the reliability of these devices down to deep-cryogenic temperatures has received limited attention so far. In this paper, we investigate the mobility degradation of n-type CMOS devices due to hot-carrier stress (HCS) at temperatures ranging from 300 K to 5 K. We use a modified Arrhenius model which includes an additional offset parameter to accurately capture the hot-carrier degradation characteristics over the entire temperature range. In the deep-cryogenic regime the freeze-out of the charge carriers causes a loss of bulk control which limits the hot-carrier degradation at cryogenic temperatures. The lifetime of the device becomes temperature independent and approaches a constant value. Additionally, we verify the classical drain voltage acceleration down to deep-cryogenic temperatures.