Radiation hardening of power MOSFETs using electrical stress

Physico-chemical processes in Vertical-Double-Diffused Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors induced by gamma-ray irradiation and post-irradiation annealing

“…The areal densities of FT, N ft and ST, N st of irradiated or annealed p-channel MOSFETs can be further determined as (Cartier, 1998;Picard et al, 2000):…”

The comparison of gamma-radiation and electrical stress influences on oxide and interface defects in power VDMOSFET

“…Be cause of their su pe rior per for mances and reason able pro duc tion price, power metal-ox ide-semicon duc tor field-ef fect tran sis tors (MOSFET) are attrac tive de vices for many space and ter res trial ap pli ca tions, in which they are ex posed to the neg a tive in flu ence of gamma-ra di a tion and high elec tric field [9]. For this rea son they were the sub ject of nu mer ous stud ies [10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Re cently, the stud ies of nu mer i cal sim u la tion of high elec tri cal field and ra di a tion ef fects on var i ous semi con duc tor de vices [17][18][19][20][21][22], in clud ing the power MOSFET [19][20][21][22], were per formed.…”

“…The same con clu sions were also ob tained in the later inves ti ga tions re lated to the power ver ti cal dou ble-dif fused metal-ox ide-semi con duc tor (VDMOS) tran sis tors [12]. Based on these ob ser va tions, the idea of elec tri cal stress uti lized as a method for ac cel er ated test ing, as well as for the ra di a tion hard en ing of de vices to be ap plied in the radi a tion en vi ron ment, has been placed in the lit er a ture [13]. How ever, it should be noted that our ear lier re sults [14] have proved that the ra di a tion hard en ing by ap plying elec tri cal stress is in ap pli ca ble.…”

Turn-Around of Threshold Voltage in Gate Bias Stressed p-Channel Power Vertical Double-Diffused Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor Transistors

“…Although most of modern MOS transistors are realized as small geometry devices with very thin gate oxide, expansion of power devices in various industrial applications for switching and control of high power has led to increased interest for investigations of reliability of thick gate oxides in power MOS devices. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] In most of applications power devices are exposed to high electric field in gate oxide and/or high temperature (automotive applications), while in some specific applications (nuclear power plants, medical equipment, communication satellites) they are exposed to ionizing irradiation.…”

“…3,4,7,16,23,[29][30][31] Note that HEF stressing was even proposed as a method for radiation hardening of power vertical double-difused MOS (VDMOS) transistors, as well as for selection of these devices for reliable operation in radiation environment. 13,14) It is well known that stress-induced threshold voltage shift (ÁV T ) is due to build-up of both positive oxide-trapped charge (area density ÁN ot ) and interface traps (area density ÁN it ), and in n-channel MOS (NMOS) devices ÁV T may be either positive or negative. 2,5,32) Initial threshold voltage shift in NMOS devices is always negative due to positive oxide-trapped charge build-up, but if significant build-up of interface traps occurred during the stressing, it may become positive, thus leading to so-called ''turn-around'' effect.…”