Comment on ‘‘Reduction of hot electron degradation in metal oxide semiconductor transistors by deuterium processing’’ [Appl. Phys. Lett. 68 , 2526 (1996)]

Abstract

We report experimental results that replacing hydrogen with deuterium during the final wafer sintering process greatly reduces hot electron degradation effects in metal oxide semiconductortransistors due to a new giant isotope effect.Transistor lifetime improvements by factors of 10–50 are observed. A plausible physical theory suggests that the benefits of deuterium use may be general and also applicable to other areas of semiconductor device processing and fabrication.