Degradation of hot carrier lifetime for narrow width MOSFET with shallow trench isolation

We have investigated the hot carrier reliability characteristics of a narrow width MOSFET with shallow trench isolation. In the case of maximum substrate current condition, the nMOSFET lifetime is not sensitive to device width. However, a significant lifetime degradation for narrow width devices was observed under high gate bias conditions (V _g=V_d). Enhanced degradation of narrow width MOSFETs at high gate bias conditions can be explained by the enhanced hot carrier generation and high injection efficiency at the STI edge. For a pass transistor in a DRAM circuit, the lifetime degradation for a narrow width device under high gate bias conditions has a significant impact on circuit reliability