Device characterization of 16/14 nm FinFETs for reliability assessment with infrared emission spectra

Our recent research shows that hot carrier photon emission spectra can deliver several important voltage-dependent device parameters of modern FinFET devices including electron and hole energy distributions, maximum electric field strength in the FET channel, free mean path length and temperature approximations for the hot carrier gas in the channel. These device parameters can be used to continuously monitor device degradation and to obtain estimates for carrier energies and scattering processes within the FET. Furthermore, the gate current function over voltage can be derived from the data using a suitable theoretical model, which can support reliability forecasts. The data presented here is almost impossible to obtain with other methods for an active device. PEM holds the further advantage of being non-invasive and only collects photons emitted by regular FET operation, leaving transistor functionality and the whole chip unaltered.