PERFORMANCE AND HOT-ELECTRON RELIABILITY OF DEEP-SUBMICRON MOSFET'S.

Well-established hot-electron-based physical models are adequate in explaining the general behaviors of the drain, substrate, and gate currents of these devices. These results suggest that the basic physics is rather well-understood and the design criteria developed for micrometer-size devices can be extended to cover their deep-submicrometer counterparts. Hot-electron studies reveal a channel-length dependence in device degradation. This phenomenon, together with gate-induced drain leakage current, will impose an upper limit on the supply voltage and a lower limit on the gate-oxide thickness. Based on device degradation results alone, the power supply voltage for a quarter-micrometer device with oxide thickness of 86 angstrom should be limited to 2. 5 V if no degradation-resistant structure is used.