FinFET NBTI degradation reduction and recovery enhancement through hydrogen incorporation and self-heating

Abstract

Negative-Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI) degrades the drive current of p-channel FinFET because defect centers are depassivated as hydrogen diffuses away under negative bias and elevated temperature. We propose incorporating hydrogen in the gate stack to reduce hydrogen depassivation rate and, thus, NBTI degradation. This approach is also expected to enhance NBTI recovery. Besides, we also propose using punch-through stop implant in bulk FinFET as an effective mean for on-chip self-heating and self-healing to enhance NBTI recovery. TCAD simulation is used to verify the ideas.