Impact of Uniaxial Strain on Low-Frequency Noise in Nanoscale PMOSFETs

Abstract

This letter investigates the low-frequency noise characteristics and reports a new mechanism for uniaxial strained PMOSFETs. Through a comparison of the input-referred noise and the trap density of the gate dielectric/semiconductor interface between co-processed strained and unstrained devices, it is found that the tunneling attenuation length for channel carriers penetrating into the gate dielectric is reduced by uniaxial strain. The reduced tunneling attenuation length may result in smaller input-referred noise, which represents an intrinsic advantage of low-frequency noise performance stemming from process-induced strain.