Elimination of hot electron gate current by the lightly doped drain-source structure

In the LDD structure, narrow self-aligned n-regions are added between the channel and the source/drain of a conventional FET. The resulting device suffers less from high electric field effects than a conventional FET. In particular, it is shown through computer simulations and experimental data that the degradation of device characteristics, due to hot electron injection into the gate insulator, is rendered insignificant by the LDD structure. Consequently a higher operating voltage and/or shorter channel length may be utilized to improve the performance of circuits design with LDD FET´s.