Simulating the Influence of Mobile Ionic Oxide Charge on SiC MOS Bias-Temperature Instability Measurements

We report here on results obtained using a time-dependent drift-diffusion model to simulate ion transport in the gate oxide of a SiC MOS device during bias-temperature instability measurements to assess the impact on threshold voltage under typical testing conditions. Measured threshold voltage is found to depend strongly on the temperature and mobile ion species, which in combination with the measurement parameters determine how the ions react to the stress and measurement sequence. Simulations show that, based on their mobilities, both potassium-like and copper-like ions may be responsible for experimental observations of a negative trend in threshold instability above 100 °C for SiC MOS devices.