Hot Carrier Degradation in MOSFETs at Cryogenic Temperatures Down to 4.2 K

Abstract

Wide attention has been focused on cryogenic CMOS (Cryo-CMOS) operation because of its wide application and the improvement of CMOS performance. However, hot carrier degradation (HCD) becomes worsening at cryogenic temperature, which affects the reliability of Cryo-CMOS. Therefore, this article investigates HCD in 0.18 um bulk CMOS at cryogenic temperature down to 4.2 K. Particularly, the relationship between HCD and the current overshoot phenomenon and the influence of substrate bias on HCD are discussed. Besides, we predict the lifetime of the device at 77 K and 4.2 K. It is concluded that cryogenic NMOS cannot reach the ten years' commercial standard lifetime at standard drain voltage (VDD). And it is predicted that the reliability requirements can be reached when VDD<1.768V/1.734V at 77K/4.2K. Differently, the lifetime of PMOS is long enough even at low temperatures.