Three-Dimensional Electrostatics- and Atomistic Doping-Induced Variability of RTN Time Constants in Nanoscale MOS Devices—Part I: Physical Investigation

This paper presents a detailed simulation analysis of the impact of 3-D electrostatics and atomistic doping on the variability of the random telegraph noise (RTN) time constants in nanoscale MOS devices. Results on a template decananometer Flash cell show that both the effects contribute to a large statistical dispersion of the capture/emission time constants of oxide traps placed at the same distance from the silicon surface, mainly due to nonuniform channel inversion. The statistical dispersion has an orders-of-magnitude increase when moving from the on-state to the subthreshold cell regimes and has major implications on the spectroscopic investigation of RTN traps, as will be discussed in Part II of this work.