Performance and hot-carrier reliability of 100 nm channel length jet vapordeposited Si3N4 MNSFETs

Metal-nitride-semiconductor FETs (MNSFETs) having channel lengths down to 1 00 nm and a novel jet vapor deposited (JVD) Si3N4 gate dielectric have been Fabricated and characterized. When compared with MOSFETs having a thermal SiO2 gate insulator, the MNSFETs show a comparable drain current drive, tra nsconductance, subthreshold slope and pre-stress interface quality. ii nove l charge pumping technique is employed to characterize the hot-carrier indu ced interface-trap generation in MNSFETs and MOSFETs. Under identical subst rate current during stress, MNSFETs show less interface-state generation an d drain current degradation, for various channel lengths, stress times and supply voltages, despite the fact that the Si-Si3N4 barrier (2.1 eV) is low er than tile Si-SiO2 barrier (3.1 eV). The time and voltage dependence of h ot-carrier degradation has been found to he distinctly different for MNSFET s compared to SiO2 MOSFETs.