Comparison between Hot-Carrier Drift and Radiation Damage in MOS Devices

Damages due to hot-carrier injection and exposure to ionizing radiation are linked through the kinetics of hole trapping and their conversion to fast states at the Si/SiO2 interface. The processing conditions and the presence of hydrogen ambient have similar impact on the device response to these two degradation mechanisms. For a given probability of hot hole generation and their injection, an increased radiation softness of an MOS device would result it an increased susceptibility to hot-carrier degradaton.