HOT-CARRIER STRESS EFFECTS ON THE AMPLITUDE OF RANDOM TELEGRAPH SIGNALS IN SMALL-AREA SI P-MOSFETS

This paper studies the effect of avalanche hot-carrier (HC) stress on the amplitude of pre-existing Random Telegraph Signals (RTSs) in small area Si p-MOSFETs. It is shown that the RTS amplitude of a particular oxide trap increases after HC stress, both in linear operation and in saturation. From this, it is concluded that the effect of such a trap on the carrier transport in a small area MOSFET is also determined by the charges present at the interface and in the oxide. The impact of the observations on the RTS based modeling of 1/f flicker noise in MOS FETs will be briefly addressed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.