HOT-CARRIER RELIABILITY IN N-MOSFETS USED AS PASS-TRANSISTORS

AC stressing is investigated to determine the hot-carrier reliability in a 0.5 mu m CMOS technology and is interpreted by a quasi-static mod el based on distinct damage mechanisms. The hot-carrier dependence of n-MOSFETs operating in pass-transistor configurations is carefully stu died as a function of the propagation time and geometry. It is shown t hat device degradation may exhibit in some cases a strong dependence o n the propagation time and clearly differs from the simple case of inv erter operation. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.