Comparison of the Hot Carrier Degradation of N- and P-Type Fin Field-Effect Transistors in 14-nm Technology Nodes

In this study, we fabricated an n- type fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) and a p- type FinFET (p-FinFET) to compare their hot carrier degradation (HCD) in 14-nm technology nodes. We analyzed the HCD under different gate voltages (VG) and found that in a 14-nm technology node, the HCD of the p- FinFET was more serious than that of the n- type FinFET (n-FinFET). In addition, asVGincreased, the HCD mechanism of the p- FinFET changed from electron–electron scattering (EES) to multiple-vibration excitation (MVE) faster than that of the n- FinFET did; thus, a larger threshold voltage (VT) shift was observed for the n- FinFET. WhenVGincreased toVT+1.2V for the n- FinFET and toVT -0.8V for the p- FinFET,Δ VTbegan to increase rapidly under hot carrier stress. The distributions ofτ × ( IBID)^-2.7-IDfor the n- FinFET and p- FinFET used in this study indicated that the mechanism of HCD changed from EES to MVE asVGincreased. This result suggests that the p- FinFET experienced more serious HCD than did the n- FinFET because of the dominance of MVE in the p- FinFET. The HCD mechanism changed with a lowerVGvalue for the p- FinFET than for the n- FinFET. Finally, HCD occurred more uniformly in the entire channel for the p- FinFET than for the n- FinFET.