Ultra-Short Pulse Current–Voltage Characterization of the Intrinsic Characteristics of High-κ Devices

An ultra-short pulse current–voltage ( I – V ) measurement technique has been applied to high-κ gate transistors to investigate the effects of fast transient charging. It is shown that the fast electron trapping may contribute to the degradation of transistor performance (i.e., low mobility) observed with direct current (DC) characterization methods, as well as pulse techniques in the tens of microseconds range and above. In particular, in the samples with significant electron trapping, the drain current in the saturation regime is shown to improve by up to 40% from its DC values when the characterization is performed with pulse I – V measurements in the nanosecond range.