Title :
A Ring-Oscillator-Based Reliability Monitor for Isolated Measurement of NBTI and PBTI in High-k/Metal Gate Technology
Author :
Kim, Tony Tae-Hyoung ; Pong-Fei Lu ; Jenkins, Keith A. ; Kim, Chris H.
Author_Institution :
IBM T. J. Watson Res. Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA
Abstract :
Ring-oscillator-based test structures that can separately measure the negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) and positive bias temperature instability (PBTI) degradation effects in digital circuits are presented for high-k metal gate devices. The mathematical derivation also shows that the structure for frequency degradation measurement can directly be used for estimating the portion of the NBTI and PBTI in the conventional ring oscillator. The proposed test structures including frequency degradation sensing circuitry have been implemented in an experimental high-k/metal gate SoI process.
Keywords :
digital circuits; high-k dielectric thin films; integrated circuit measurement; integrated circuit reliability; negative bias temperature instability; oscillators; NBTI; PBTI; digital circuits; frequency degradation measurement; frequency degradation sensing circuitry; high-k metal gate devices; isolated measurement; negative bias temperature instability; positive bias temperature instability; ring-oscillator-based reliability monitor; Degradation; Delays; Frequency measurement; Logic gates; Ring oscillators; Stress; Temperature measurement; Bias temperature instability; high-k/metal gate; on-chip measurement; reliability monitor; ring oscillator;
Journal_Title :
Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TVLSI.2014.2339364
