Hydrogen in MOSFETs - A primary agent of reliability issues

Hydrogen plays an important role in MOSFETS as it is intentionally introduced to passivate defects (primarily Si dangling bonds) at the Si-SiO2 interface. At the same time, hydrogen has long been known to be involved in many degradation processes, with much attention being devoted recently to bias-temperature instability (BTI). Here, we give an overview of extensive theoretical results that provide a comprehensive picture of the role that hydrogen plays in several radiation-induced degradation modes and BTI. We identify a common origin for several degradation phenomena: H is released as H+ by holes either in the oxide or in Si and is driven to the interface by a positive or negative bias, respectively, where it depassivates dangling bonds via the formation of H-2 molecules. We close with a note about the role of hydrogen as a main agent for aging of microelectronics. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.