A reversible first-order dispersive model of parametric instability

• A new parametric instability compact model for microelectronic devices.
• Periodic stimuli of arbitrary waveform are addressed.
• Model implementable in commercial simulators without resorting to external software.
• Provided with a NBTI case study with gate bias and temperature dependence included.

A general purpose instability model is derived for the variation of device parameters which is related to the activation–deactivation of statistically independent microscopic defects, with reversible first-order reaction kinetics and distributed rate constants. The model is aimed at predicting the parametric instability of electronic devices under periodic AC stimulus of arbitrary waveform over a wide time-scale range covering the whole device lifetime. As a practical application, we extracted a model for the negative-bias temperature instability of a p-channel type silicon MOSFET, including both the recovery effects and the voltage–temperature dependence. The model can be implemented in commercially available tools for the compact simulation of integrated circuits.