abstract: The scaling of transistors has numerous advantages such as increased memory density, less power consumption and better performance; but on the other hand, they also give rise to many reliability issues. One of the major reliability issue is the hot carrier injection and the effect it has on device degradation over time which causes serious circuit malfunctions. Hot carrier injection has been studied from early 1980's and a lot of research has been done on the various hot carrier injection mechanisms and how the devices get damaged due to this effect. However, most of the existing hot carrier degradation models do not consider the physics involved in the degradation process and they just calculate the change in threshold voltage for different stress voltages and time. Based on this, an analytical expression is formulated that predicts the device lifetime. This thesis starts by discussing various hot carrier injection mechanisms and the effects it has on the device. Studies have shown charges getting trapped in gate oxide and interface trap generation are two mechanisms for device degradation. How various device parameters get affected due to these traps is discussed here. The physics based models such as lucky hot electron model and substrate current model are presented and gives an idea how the gate current and substrate current can be related to hot carrier injection and density of traps created. Devices are stressed under various voltages and from the experimental data obtained, the density of trapped charges and interface traps are calculated using mid-gap technique. In this thesis, a simple analytical model based on substrate current is used to calculate the density of trapped charges in oxide and interface traps generated and it is a function of stress voltage and stress time. The model is verified against the data and the TCAD simulations. Finally, the analytical model is incorporated in a Verilog-A model and based on the surface potential method, the threshold voltage shift due to hot carrier stress is calculated. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Electrical Engineering 2017

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abstract: A modeling platform for predicting total ionizing dose (TID) and dose rate response of commercial commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) linear bipolar circuits and technologies is introduced. Tasks associated with the modeling platform involve the development of model to predict the excess current response in a bipolar transistor given inputs of interface (NIT) and oxide defects (NOT) which are caused by ionizing radiation exposure. Existing models that attempt to predict this excess base current response are derived and discussed in detail. An improved model is proposed which modifies the existing model and incorporates the impact of charged interface trap defects on radiation-induced excess base current. The improved accuracy of the new model in predicting excess base current response in lateral PNP (LPNP) is then verified with Technology Computer Aided Design (TCAD) simulations. Finally, experimental data and compared with the improved and existing model calculations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Electrical Engineering 2017