Ming Wen Ma

Reliability Mechanisms of LTPS-TFT With

In this paper, a comprehensive study of the reliability mechanisms of high-performance low-temperature polycrystalline-Si thin-film transistor (LTPS-TFT) with gate dielectric is reported for the first time. Various bias- and temperature-stress conditions, which correspond to positive-bias stress (PBS), positive-bias temperature instability (PBTI), negative-bias stress (NBS), negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI), and hot-carrier stress, are used to differentiate the distribution and mechanism of trap density states. The generation of deep-trap states of the effective interfacial layer (IL), tail-trap states of poly-Si grain boundaries, and electron trapping of the gate dielectric is observed for the PBS and PBTI of the LTPS-TFT. In addition, both the deep- and tail-trap states of the effective IL are generated under NBS and NBTI of the LTPS-TFT.

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In this letter, the characteristics of positive bias temperature instability (PBTI) and hot carrier stress (HCS) for the low-temperature poly-Si thin-film transistors (LTPS-TFTs) with gate dielectric are well investigated for the first time. Under room temperature stress condition, the. PBTI shows a more serious degradation than does HCS, indicating that the gate bias stress would dominate the hot carrier degradation behavior for LTPS-TFT. In addition, an abnormal behavior of the degradation with different drain bias stress under high-temperature stress condition is also observed and identified in this letter. The degradation of devices performance under high-temperature stress condition can be attributed to the damages of both the gate dielectric and the poly-Si grain boundaries.

Gate Dielectric: PBTI, NBTI, and Hot-Carrier Stress

In this paper, the current transportation mechanism of HfO2 gate dielectrics with a TaN metal gate and silicon surface fluorine implantation is investigated. Based on the experimental results of the temperature dependence of gate leakage current and Fowler-Nordheim tunneling characteristics at 77 K, we have extracted the current transport mechanisms and energy band diagrams for TaN/HfO2/IL/Si structures with fluorine incorporation, respectively. In particular, we have obtained the following physical quantities: 1) fluorinated and as-deposited interfacial layer (IL)/Si barrier heights (or conduction band offsets) at 3.2 and 2.7 eV; 2) TaN/fluorinated and as-deposited HfO2 barrier heights at 2.6 and 1.9 eV; and 3) effective trapping levels at 1.25 eV (under both gate and substrate injections) below the HfOF conduction band and at 1.04 eV (under gate injection) and 1.11 eV (under substrate injection) below the HfO2 conduction band, which contributes to Frenkel-Poole conduction.

Characteristics of PBTI and Hot Carrier Stress for LTPS-TFT With High-

In this paper, the current transportation mechanism of HfO2 gate dielectrics with a TaN metal gate and silicon surface fluorine implantation is investigated. Based on the experimental results of the temperature dependence of gate leakage current and Fowler-Nordheim tunneling characteristics at 77 K, we have extracted the current transport mechanisms and energy band diagrams for TaN/HfO2/IL/Si structures with fluorine incorporation, respectively. In particular, we have obtained the following physical quantities: 1) fluorinated and as-deposited interfacial layer (IL)/Si barrier heights (or conduction band offsets) at 3.2 and 2.7 eV; 2) TaN/fluorinated and as-deposited HfO2 barrier heights at 2.6 and 1.9 eV; and 3) effective trapping levels at 1.25 eV (under both gate and substrate injections) below the HfOF conduction band and at 1.04 eV (under gate injection) and 1.11 eV (under substrate injection) below the HfO2 conduction band, which contributes to Frenkel-Poole conduction.

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In this paper, highly reliable wrapped-select-gate (WSG) silicon–oxide–nitride–oxide–silicon (SONOS) memory cells with multi-level and 2-bit/cell operation have been successfully demonstrated. The source-side injection mechanism for WSG-SONOS memory with different ONO thickness was thoroughly investigated. The different programming efficiencies of the WSG-SONOS memory under different ONO thicknesses are explained by the lateral electrical field extracted from the simulation results. Furthermore, multi-level storage is easily obtained, and good VTH distribution presented, for the WSG-SONOS memory with optimized ONO thickness. High program/erase speed (10 µs/5 ms) and low programming current (3.5 µA) are used to achieve the multi-level operation with tolerable gate and drain disturbance, negligible second-bit effect, excellent data retention and good endurance performance.

Gate Dielectric

In this letter, high-performance low-temperature poly-Si p-channel thin-film transistor with metal-induced lateral- crystallization (MILC) channel layer and TaN/HfO2 gate stack is demonstrated for the first time. The devices of low threshold voltage VTH ~ 0.095 V, excellent subthreshold swing S.S. ~83 mV/dec, and high field-effect mobility muFE ~ 240 cm2/V ldr s are achieved without any defect passivation methods. These significant improvements are due to the MILC channel film and the very high gate-capacitance density provided by HfO2 gate dielectric with the effective oxide thickness of 5.12 nm.

Carrier Transportation Mechanism of the TaN/HfO 2 /IL/Si Structure With Silicon Surface Fluorine Implantation

In this study, the fringing electric field effect on 65-nm-node technology fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD SOI) device is comprehensively examined. A new anomalous degradation in device on-state/off-state characteristics on a nanoscale metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) with high-κ gate dielectrics is reported, the so-called fringing-induced barrier lowering (FIBL). This is due to the decrease in fringing electric field and increase in the gate dielectric thickness when gate dielectric permittivity increased. We observe that FIBL can be effectively suppressed using a stack gate dielectric structure. In addition, we also implement a high-κ offset spacer to further improve the on-state driving current Ion to approximately 26% higher than that of a conventional silicon dioxide offset spacer and reduce the off-state leakage current Ioff by about 34%. This benefit is due to the enhanced high vertical channel electric field obtained via the offset spacer using a high-κ material as a spacer. This enhanced fringing electric field can markedly increase Ion/Ioff current ratio and reduce subthreshold swing (S-factor) to improve MOSFET performance, which implies that gate-to-channel controllability can be improved markedly. This would play an important role beyond the 65-nm-node technology.

Carrier Transportation Mechanism of the Structure With Silicon Surface Fluorine Implantation

The characteristics of CoTiO3 high-k dielectric prepared by sol-gel spin coating method had been demonstrated. High electrical permittivity (k∼40.2) of CoTiO3 dielectric was extracted via the transmission electron microscopy image and capacitance-voltage curves. In addition, the valence band offset between thermal SiO2 and spin-on CoTiO3 was about 4.0 eV, which was detected by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The band gaps of thermal SiO2 and spin-on CoTiO3 were 9.0 and 2.2 eV, respectively. Energy band alignment of spin-on CoTiO3 directly with SiO2 and indirectly with Si was determined in this work.

Optimized ONO thickness for multi-level and 2-bit/cell operation for wrapped-select-gate (WSG) SONOS memory

In this paper, the current transportation mechanism of HfO2 gate dielectrics with a TaN metal gate and silicon surface fluorine implantation is investigated. Based on the experimental results of the temperature dependence of gate leakage current and Fowler-Nordheim tunneling characteristics at 77 K, we have extracted the current transport mechanisms and energy band diagrams for TaN/HfO2/IL/Si structures with fluorine incorporation, respectively. In particular, we have obtained the following physical quantities: 1) fluorinated and as-deposited interfacial layer (IL)/Si barrier heights (or conduction band offsets) at 3.2 and 2.7 eV; 2) TaN/fluorinated and as-deposited HfO2 barrier heights at 2.6 and 1.9 eV; and 3) effective trapping levels at 1.25 eV (under both gate and substrate injections) below the HfOF conduction band and at 1.04 eV (under gate injection) and 1.11 eV (under substrate injection) below the HfO2 conduction band, which contributes to Frenkel-Poole conduction.

High-Performance Metal-Induced Laterally Crystallized Polycrystalline Silicon P-Channel Thin-Film Transistor With

In this paper, fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (SOI) devices with source/drain extension shifts and a high-κ offset spacers were investigated in detail. The calculated results show that the source/drain extension shift can decrease off-state leakage current Ioff significantly by utilizing the extra electron barrier height in the source/drain extension shift region to reduce standby power dissipation. However, the on-state driving current Ion is also sacrificed simultaneously. To overcome this drawback, a high-κ offset spacer is used to increase the on-state driving current Ion effectively by enhancing the vertical fringing electric field which elevates the channel voltage drop and reduces series resistance.