Impact of Hydrogen on the Bias Temperature Instability

The ability of hydrogen to saturate lattice imperfections, which arise naturally at the silicon–oxide interface due to the structural mismatch of the two materials, has already early motivated to connect H with the bias temperature instability. Consistently, ESR measurements after NBTS observed P b center defects, i.e. previously H passivated interfacial dangling bonds on silicon atoms at the interface, which supports the assumption that H is detached from defect precursors during NBTS. In contrast, theoretical and experimental investigations on the Si–H bond dissociation energy revealed a rather large value, inconsistent with the low-energy nature of conventional NBTI test. We summarize several explanations to this problem and compare these ideas with studies where the amount of H near the interfacial layer is varied through particular process adjustments.

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