Understanding Frequency Dependence of Trap Generation Under AC Negative Bias Temperature Instability Stress in Si p-FinFETs

In this letter, we present an experimental study on the frequency (
f
) dependence of trap generation under AC negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) stress in Si p-channel fin field-effect transistors (p-FinFETs), by adopting the direct-current current voltage (DCIV) method and an energy profiling technique. The interface trap generation (
$\Delta ~\text{N}_{IT}$
) and bulk trap generation (
$\Delta ~\text{N}_{OT}$
) are separated from the measured DCIV data and their
${f}$
dependences are independently investigated. The DCIV results indicate that the observed strong
${f}$
dependence of trap generation is primarily attributed to the
${f}$
-dependent
$\Delta ~\text{N}_{OT}$
that exhibits a 36% reduction when
${f}$
increases from 10 Hz to 1 MHz. Furthermore, this
${f}$
-dependent
$\Delta ~\text{N}_{OT}$
is mainly distributed between
${\text{E}_{v}}$
and
${\text{E}_{i}}$
, and exhibits a visible
${f}$
-dependent peak of energy density around
${\text{E}_{c}}$
.