LOCATION, STRUCTURE, AND DENSITY OF STATES OF NBTI-INDUCED DEFECTS IN PLASMA NITRIDED PMOSFETS

We utilize a combination of DC-IV measurements and very sensitive electrically-detected electron spin resonance measurements called spin-dependent recombination to observe NBTI-induced defect centers in SiO2 and plasma nitrided oidde (PNO)-based pMOSFETs. We present strong spectroscopic evidence that the dominating NBTI-induced defect observed in PNO-based devices is physically different than the Si/dielectric interface silicon dangling bond P-b0 and P-b1 defects observed in SiO2-based devices. Our observations strongly indicate that the NBTI-induced defects in the PNO-based devices are located in the near interfacial region, within the dielectric It is also likely that these defects exhibit a far narrower density of states than the NBTI-induced P-b0 and P-b1 defects in SiO2-based devices. We tentatively assign the NBTI-induced defect in the PNO devices as K-N for NBTI.