High-frequency AC hot-carrier degradation in CMOS circuits

The device degradation due to hot carriers generated under high-frequency circuit operation is studied in detail. Two new degradation phenomena are observed at these high frequencies. First, voltage overshoot, due to internal MOSFET parasitic capacitances, causes enhanced hot-carrier degradation. Second, the quasi-static approximation is found to be invalid at high frequencies. For NMOSFETs, fast voltage transitions are found to induce different degradation dynamics; for PMOSFETs, donor-type interface-state generation and electron detrapping both become significant.<<ETX>>