3 Acknowledgment

First and foremost I want to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor Prof. Tibor Grasser. For me he is an inspiring example for a researcher thoroughly investigating the facts. I would like to thank Tibor for supporting me with patience and advice any time. Furthermore, I am grateful for giving me the freedom to developed our own experimental equipment and to setup our own lab, which I enjoyed every day anew.

I want to thank Prof. Erasmus Langer and Prof. Siegfried Selberherr for providing the excellent working conditions at such a prestigious place. The magnificent support of Manfred Katterbauer and Ewald Haslinger during construction of our own electronic laboratory is gratefully acknowledged. Furthermore, Johann Cervenka has always found time to solve the weirdest IT related problems.

The first years being a PhD student would not have been memorable without my former room mates Paul-Jürgen Wagner, Franz Schanovsky and Wolfgang Gös. It was Paul and Franz who introduced me to the research field of device reliability. Furthermore, a countless number of detailed discussions with Paul on circuit engineering significantly improved my later work. I want to thank Wolfgang for his patience and support during writing of my first publications. Next to Tibor, Gerhard Rzepa, Alexander Grill and Bianka Ullmann provided valuable feedback while suffering as beta-testers of the developed measurement setup. Furthermore, together with Markus Jech and Stanislav Tyaginov, they improved this thesis by carefully correcting it. I want to express special thanks to Gerhard and Alexander for introducing me to the theory of defect modeling and setting up the device simulations.

Without the support of the Institute of Sensor and Actuator Systems, lead by Prof. Ulrich Schmid, the assembly of the first mechanical prototypes would not have been possible. In that context I am grateful for the support of Franz Prewein. Regarding sample preparation, the assistance of Michael Buchholz, Patrick Meyer and Arthur Jachimowicz is appreciated.

At this point I want to thank Hans Reisinger and Karina Rott (Infineon Munich, Germany), Ben Kaczer, Jacopo Franco and Marko Simicic (IMEC Leuven, Belgium) for our successful cooperation during the last years.

Since the last three years the lunch breaks shared with the “Team Cooking” were a daily highlight. Regular discussions about life beyond our research activities while enjoying varieties of pasta and curry made for a welcome change.

Last but not least I want to express my deepest graduate to my parents Michaela and Ernst. Without their financial and emotional support I would not have been able to study at a technical university. Special thanks go to my sister Magdalena and brother Bernhard, recently pushing ourselves to successfully participate at the Vienna City Marathon. I am deeply grateful to my uncle Manfred Schwanninger, who besides his extraordinary commitment to research, always supported me. Much to my regret Manfred was not allowed to share the finalization of this thesis with us. Finally, I want to thank Elisabeth for her patience and understanding for the numerous hours spent at the Institute.

List of Symbols

Physical Quantities

Symbol	Unit	Description
	1	Occupancy
	m	Gate area of pMOSFET
	m	Gate area of nMOSFET
	F	Drain-gate capacitance of a MOSFET
	F	Drain-source capacitance of MOSFET
	eV/[a.u.]	Curvature of potential energy surface of state 1
	eV/[a.u.]	Curvature of potential energy surface of state 2
	F	Oxide capacitance
	cm	Change of the interface charge density
	cm	Change of the oxide charge density
	cm	Change of the interface trap density
	cm	Change of the oxide charge density
	C	Change of the interface charge
	C	Change of the oxide charge
	cm	Interface charge density
	V	Input voltage range
	V	Voltage resolution
	V	Threshold voltage shift
	1	Relative permitivity
	1	Relative permitivity of
	F/m	Permitivity of the gate dielectrics
	eV	NMP barrier for charge capture
	eV	NMP barrier for charge emission
	1	Relative permitivity of silicon
	1	Relative permitivity of
	V	Average step height of defect in large-area transistor
	V	Average step height of defect in nanoscale transistor
	eV	Activation energy
	eV	Activation energy of charge capture
	eV	Activation energy of charge emission
	eV	Fermi-level
	V/m	Electric oxide field
	V/m	Effective electric oxide field during stress
	eV	Defect trap level
	1	Occupancy of oxide traps
	Hz	Sampling frequency
	Hz	Maximum frequency
	Hz	Maximum sampling frequency
	S	Transconductance
	cm	interfacial hydrogen concentration
	A	Channel conduction current
	A	Drain current
	A	Drain current in the linear regime
	A	Gate current
	A	Input current
	A	Maximum current
	A	Reference current
	A	Short-circuit current
	1/s	Transition rate between state 1 and state 2
	1/s	Transition rate between state 2 and state 1
	1/s	Transition rate between state and state
	1/s	Hydrogen dimmerization rate
	1/2	Hydrogen atomization rate
	1/s	Reaction-diffusion model forward reaction rate
	1/s	Reaction-diffusion model backward reaction rate
	m	MOSFET gate length
	cm/(Vs)	Effective channel mobility
	1/s	Attempt frequency
	1	Number of emission events
	cm	Initial interface state density
	cm	Interface state density
	1	Number of measured recovery traces
	cm	pMOSFET trap density
	cm	nMOSFET trap density
	1	Number of active defects
	1	Number of active defects in large-area devices
	1	Number of active defects in nanoscale devices
	cm	Total dopand concentration
	V	Channel surface potential
	V	Position dependent potential drop across the gate stack during
		recovery
	V	Position dependent potential drop across the gate stack during
		stress
	V	Permanent component of the threshold voltage shift
	V	Average permanent threshold voltage shift
	V	Maximum of the permanent threshold voltage shift
	V	Minimum of the permanent threshold voltage shift
	a.u.	Reaction coordinate of state 1
	a.u.	Reaction coordinate of state 2
	a.u.	Difference between reaction coordinates of state 1 and state 2
	a.u.	Difference between reaction coordinates of state 1 and state 2
		Reference resistor
	V	Variance of the threshold voltage
	s	Charge capture time
	s	Charge capture time at low bias
	s	Charge capture time at high bias
	s	Charge emission time
	s	Charge emission time at low bias
	s	Charge emission time at high bias
	s	Voltage pulse duration
	m	Effective oxide thickness
	s	Signal fall time
	m	Oxide thickness
	m	Thickness of layer
	s	Measurement window
	s	Duration of voltage pulse
	m	Thickness of layer
	s	Signal rise time
	s	Recovery time
	s	Maximum recovery time
	s	Stress time
	s	Effective stress time
	m	Thickness of the Si cap layer
	m	Thickness of the SiGe layer
	s	Switching time
	eV	Energy barrier height
	eV	Energy level of state 1
	eV	Energy level of state 2
	eV	Energy difference between state 1 and state 2
	eV	Energy difference between state 2 and state 1
	V	Bulk voltage
	V	Nominal operation voltage
	V	Drain voltage
	V	Drain voltage of MOSFETs which are not accessed
	V	Drain recovery voltage
	V	Drain stress voltage
	V	Gate voltage of pMOSFETs which are not accessed
	V	Gate voltage of pMOSFETs which are not accessed
	V	Gate voltage
	V	Down sweep of the gate voltage
	V	Up sweep of the gate voltage
	V	Gate overdrive voltage
	V	Gate recovery voltage
	V	Gate stress voltage
	V	Input voltage
	V	Maximum voltage
	V	Offset voltage
	V	Output voltage
	V	Voltage of voltage pulse
	V	Reference voltage
	V	Source voltage
	V	Threshold voltage
	m	MOSFET gate width
	m	Trap spatial position

Constants

		Boltzmann’s constant		1.380 662 × 10−23/(J K)
		Elementary charge		1.602 189 2 × 10−19 C
		Vacuum Permitivity		8.854 187 817 × 10−12 F/m

Acronyms

• ADC Analog to Digital Converter

• AER Active Energy Region

• aRTN Anomalous Random Telegraph Noise

• BCSUM Bootstrapping and Cumulative Sum

• BTI Bias Temperature Instabilities

• CCDF Complementary Cumulative Distribution Function

• CCU Current Convert Unit

• CDF Cumulative Distribution Function

• CET Capture Emission Time

• CMOS Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor

• CP Charge Pumping

• CSUM Cumulative Sum

• CV Capacitance-Voltage

• DAC Digital to Analog Converter

• DAU Data Aquisition Unit

• DCIV Direct Current Voltage

• DCU Device Connector Unit

• DFT Density Functional Theory

• DLTS Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy

• DSO Digital Storage Oscilloscope

• DUT Device Under Test

• DW Double Well

• EOT Effective Oxide Thickness

• EPR Electronic Paramagnetic Resonanz

• EEPROM Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only-Memories

• ESR Electronic Spin Resonanz

• FET Field-Effect Transistor

• GaN Galiumnitride

• HCD Hot Carrier Degradation

• HEMT High-Electron-Mobility Transistor

• HKMG High-k Metal Gate

• HMM Hidden Markov Model

• HR Hydrogen Release

• LER Line Edge Roughness

• MGR Metal Grain Roughness

• MOS Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor

• MOSFET Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor

• MOSHEMT Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor High-Electron-Mobility Transistor

• MPE Multiphonen Emission

• MPFAT Multiphonon-Field-Assisted Tunneling

• MSM Measure-Stress-Measure

• nMOSFET N-Channel MOSFET

• NBTI Negative Bias Temperature Instabilities

• NMP Non-Radiative Multiphonon

• OPAMP Operational Amplifier

• OTF On-the-Fly

• PBTI Positive Bias Temperature Instabilities

• PDF Probability Distribution Function

• PGU Pulse GeneratorUnit

• pMOSFET P-Channel MOSFET

• PSU Power Supply Unit

• QM Quantum-Mechanical

• RD Reaction-Diffusion

• RDD Random Discrete Dopand

• RTN Random Telegraph Noise

• RTS Random Telegraph Signal

• SCU Source Converter Unit

• SDR Spin Dependent Recombination

• SiGe Silicon-Germanium

• SILC Stress Induced Leackage Current

• SMU Source Measure Unit

• SRAM Static Random Access Memory

• TAT Trap Assisted Tunneling

• TCAD Technology Computer Aided Design

• TDDS Time-Dependent Defect Spectroscopy

• TMI Time-Dependent Defect Spectroscopy Measurement Instrument

• UFSP Ultra Fast Single-Pulse

• UPS Uninteruptable Power Supply

• VU Voltage Unit

• VLSI Very Large Scale Integrated