Submicrometer device design for hot-electron reliability and performance

Hot-electron stressing effect on different lightly doped drain device (LDD), As/P, and conventional As source/drain device structures are investigated. Increasing the overlap between the gate and drain is found to reduce hot-electron degradation significantly when stressed under the same substrate current level. By increasing the gate-to-drain overlap, it is possible to design LDD and As/P devices with a shorter n-region and still have good hot-electron reliability. These devices have better current drive and are scalable down to the submicrometer region. The As/P device with a short n-region is a good candidate for a submicrometer VLSI device because of the simplicity in processing, the good device performance, and the low susceptibility to hot-electron degradation.