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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC)
INTC 36.20+0.1%Dec 26 9:30 AM EST
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To: Elmer who wrote (94086)12/15/1999 6:20:00 PM
From: Saturn V  Read Replies (1) of 186894
 
Ref- < Hot Electrons >

You have the basic idea correct. With the steady scaling(shrinking) of the Transistor Channel Length, the Lateral Electric Field in the channel of an ON transistor has gone up dramatically. So an electron travelling laterally in a transistor is getting very "HOT", that is Device Physics Speak for the fact that the electron does not lose all its energy when it collides with the Silicon Lattice Atom like a "normal" electron. This excess energy helps some of the 'hot electrons' get 'injected' into the Silicon dioxide.

Once the electron gets into the Silicon dioxide,the oxide gets degraded.Electron traps are created inside the oxide, and further electrons get trapped here. The trapped electrons cause the transistor threshold <Vt> to change. The traps also degrade the gain ( transconductance or Gm) of the transistor. The hot electron effect results in the gradual degradation of a transistor.

An immense amount of process engineering goes into minimizing this effect.Exotic doping profiles and spacers are used to contain this degradation. This effect was kept in check for years, but in todays relentless scaling, and higher and higher switching speeds, the circuit can degrade.[ For digital circuits,the Hot Electron Degradation happens only during the switching of a n-channel transistor ]. I do not know how much of a guardband is necessary. The Intel Reliability or Production Engineers will have the answer.

I hope I have shed some light on a very tricky topic, which is beyond the comprehension of most EE's.

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