• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.43 no.3 s.345
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• pp.9-14
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• 2006

The dependence of NBTI lifetime on the BEOL processes such as sintering gas type and passivation layer has been characterized in depth. Then, optimized BEOL process scheme is proposed to improve NBTI lifetime. NBTI showed degradation due to the plasma enhanced nitride (PE-SiN) passivation film and $H_2$ sintering anneal. Then, new process scheme of $N_2$ annealing instead of $H_2$ annealing prior to PE-SiN deposition is proposed. The proposed BEOL process flow showed that NBTI lifetime can be improved a lot without degradation of device performance and NMOS hot carrier reliability.