Abstract
In this study, hot-carrier stresses in high-voltage (HV) lateral diffused metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (LDMOSFETs) are applied under maximum substrate current (I Sub,max ) conditions with different V DS and V GS . The power index of the hot-carrier degradation rates is not always 0.5 upon stressing under different I Sub,max conditions, and the HV LDMOSFETs do not exhibit the hot-carrier degradation behavior observed in low-voltage (LV) metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). In order to explain why the degradation rates under I Sub,max conditions differ with different biases, two-dimensional simulators are used to elucidate the degradation mechanism in HV LDMOSFETs. It is found that under different I Sub,max conditions, the highest impact ionization is located at different positions in the drift region of the device. Due to the different gate-control abilities of these regions, the current densities affected by the hot-carrier-induced interface-trapped charges are different. Thus the hot-carrier degradation rates also differ. Furthermore, due to the different depths of the impact ionization region, the amounts of initial hot-carrier-induced interface-trapped charges differ and thus the power-law pre-coefficient A also differs.