Investigating Hot-Carrier Effects using the Backward Monte Carlo Method

1 Introduction

This chapter pictures the motivation for this work and presents a brief outline of the same.

1.1 Motivation

With the down-scaling of semiconductor devices, a detailed understanding of the underlying physical processes is required in order to further improve device performance. To gain some insights into modern semiconductor devices through numerical simulations, accurate, theoretical descriptions of carrier transport fundamentals have to be available. Technology Computer Aided Design (TCAD) has become a powerful tool for the development of faster, smaller and more power-efficient devices [87].

Scaling influences the reliability of semiconductor devices due to single point defects and a small amount of dopants in the channel, leading to fluctuation in the electrostatic potential [6]. Hot-carrier degradation (HCD) is a severe reliability concern in state-of-the-art transistors. Thus, for an accurate description of the HCD effect, a detailed description of the high-energy tail of the carrier distribution function is needed. Due to small device geometries and low supply voltages the hot-carriers result mainly from scattering processes in the semiconductor [104].