Hot Hole-Induced Device Degradation by Drain Junction Reverse Current

We studied device degradation by hot hole under drain junction reverse voltage stress with n-type metal-oxide- semiconductor field effect transistors (N-MOSFETs). The drain current generated under high drain voltage in the off-state are the drain junction reverse current and gate-induced drain leakage (GIDL) current. Therefore, we should judge that carrier injection mechanism into the gate in the off-state is due to drain junction reverse current or due to GIDL current. For our devices, drain junction reverse current was more dominant than GIDL current under specific drain voltage, and hot holes generated in the drain junction depletion region during drain junction reverse voltage stress were injected into the gate by vertical electric field, which then leads to device degradation by trapped charges. In this paper, we studied characteristic of hole injection and device degradation by drain junction reverse current.