• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.380-382
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• 2016

The mechanism for instability under PBS (positive bias stress) in amorphous SIZO (Si-In-Zn-O) thin-film transistors was investigated by analyzing the charge trapping mechanism. It was found that the bulk traps in the SIZO channel layer and the channel/dielectric interfacial traps are not created during the PBS duration. This result suggests that charge trapping in gate dielectric, and/or in oxide semiconductor bulk, and/or at the channel/dielectric interface is a more dominant mechanism than the creation of defects in the SIZO-TFTs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.497-497
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• 2013

Semiconducting amorphous InGaZnO (a-IGZO) has attracted significant research attention as improved deposition techniques have made it possible to make high-quality a-IGZO thin films. IGZO thin films have several advantages over thin film transistors (TFTs) based on other semiconducting channel layers.The electron mobility in IGZO devices is relatively high, exceeding amorphous Si (a-Si) by a factor of 10 and most organic devices by a factor of $10^2$. Moreover, in contrast to other amorphous semiconductors, highly conducting degenerate states can be obtained with IGZO through doping, yet such a state cannot be produced with a-Si. IGZO thin films are capable of mobilities greaterthan 10 $cm^2$/Vs (higher than a-Si:H), and are transparent at visible wavelengths. For oxide semiconductors, carrier concentrations can be controlled through oxygen vacancy concentration. Hence, adjusting the oxygen partial pressure during deposition and post-deposition processing provides an effective method of controlling oxygen concentration. In this study, we deposited IGZO thinfilms at optimized conditions and then analyzed the film's electrical properties, surface morphology, and crystal structure. Then, we explored how to generate IGZO thin films using DC magnetron sputtering. We also describe the construction and characteristics of a bottom-gate-type TFT, including the output and transfer curves and bias stress instability mechanism.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.526-532
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• 2015

We quantitatively investigated instability mechanisms under simultaneous positive gate and drain bias stress (SPGDBS) in self-aligned top-gate amorphous indium-zinc-oxide thin-film transistors. After SPGDBS ($V_{GS}=13V$and $V_{DS}=13V$), the parallel shift of the transfer curve into a negative $V_{GS}$ direction and the increase of on current were observed. In order to quantitatively analyze mechanisms of the SPGDBS-induced negative shift of threshold voltage (${\Delta}V_T$), we experimentally extracted the density-of-state, and then analyzed by comparing and combining measurement data and TCAD simulation. As results, 19% and 81% of ${\Delta}V_T$ were taken to the donor-state creation and the hole trapping, respectively. This donor-state seems to be doubly ionized oxygen vacancy ($V{_O}^{2+}$). In addition, it was also confirmed that the wider channel width corresponds with more negative ${\Delta}V_T$. It means that both the donor-state creation and hole trapping can be enhanced due to the increase in self-heating as the width becomes wider. Lastly, all analyzed results were verified by reproducing transfer curves through TCAD simulation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.02a
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• pp.450-450
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• 2012

In recent days, advances in ZnO-based oxide semiconductor materials have accelerated the development of thin-film transistors (TFTs), which are the building blocks for active matrix flat-panel displays including liquid crystal displays (LCD) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLED). In particular, the development of high-mobility ZnO-based channel materials has been proven invaluable; thus, there have been many reports of high-performance TFTs with oxide semiconductor channels such as ZnO, InZnO (IZO), ZnSnO (ZTO), and InGaZnO (IGZO). The reliability of oxide TFTs can be improved by examining more stable oxide channel materials. In the present study, we investigated the effects of an ALD-deposited water vapor permeation barrier on the stability of ZnO and HfZnO (HZO) thin film transistors. The device without the water vapor barrier films showed a large turn-on voltage shift under negative bias temperature stress. On the other hand, the suitably protected device with the lowest water vapor transmission rate showed a dramatically improved device performance. As the value of the water vapor transmission rate of the barrier films was decreased, the turn-on voltage instability reduced. The results suggest that water vapor related traps are strongly related to the instability of ZnO and HfZnO TFTs and that a proper combination of water vapor permeation barriers plays an important role in suppressing the device instability.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.280-283
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• 2012

By inserting $H_2O$ treatment steps during atomic layer deposition of a ZnO layer, the turn-on voltage shift from negative bias stress (NBS) under illumination was reduced considerably compared to that of a device that has a continuously grown ZnO layer without any treatment steps. Meanwhile, treatment steps without introducing reactive gases, and simply staying under a low working pressure, aggravated the instability under illuminated NBS due to an increase of oxygen vacancy concentration in the ZnO layer. From the experiment results, additional oxidation of the ZnO channel layer is proven to be effective in improving the stability against illuminated NBS.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.315-319
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• 2014

In this paper, we investigate visible light stress instability in radio frequency (RF) sputtered a-IGZO thin film transistors (TFTs). The oxygen flow rate differs during deposition to control the concentration of oxygen vacancies, which is confirmed via RT PL. A negative shift is observed in the threshold voltage ($V_{TH}$) under illumination with/without the gate bias, and the amount of shift in $V_{TH}$ is proportional to the concentration of oxygen vacancies. This can be explained to be consistent with the ionization oxygen vacancy model where the instability in $V_{TH}$ under illumination is caused by the increase in the channel conductivity by electrons that are photo-generated from oxygen vacancies, and it is maintained after the illumination is removed due to the negative-U center properties.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.08a
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• pp.515-518
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• 2002

In this paper, we demonstrate the impact of oxide interface-state on low temperature poly-Si TFTs. The TFTs with interface-state exhibit poor performance and serious degradation under hot carrier and gate bias stress. Our results indicate that the worse oxide integrity cause initial characteristic shift and device instability.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2003.07b
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• pp.719-722
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• 2003

This work investigates the device degradation p-channel PD SOI devices at various applied voltages as well as stress temperatures with respect to Body-Contact SOI (BC-SOI) and Floating-Body SOI (FB-SOI) MOSFETs. It is observed that the drain current degradation at the gate voltage of the maximum gate current is more significant in FB-SOI devices than in BC-SOI devices. For a stress at the gate voltage of the maximum gate current and elevated temperature, it is worth noting that the $V_{PT}$ Will be decreased by the amount of the HEIP plus the temperature effects. For a stress at $V_{GS}$ = $V_{DS}$ . the drain current decreases moderately with stress time at room temperature but it decreases significantly at the elevated temperature due to the negative bias temperature instability.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.139-144
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• 2013

Negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) has become a major factor determining circuit reliability. The effect of the NBTI on the circuit performance depends on the duty cycle which represents the stress and recovery conditions of each device in a circuit. In this paper, we propose an analytical model to perform more accurate duty cycle estimation at the gate-level. The proposed model allows accurate (average error rate: 3%) computation of the duty cycle without the need for expensive transistor-level simulations Furthermore, our model estimates the waveforms at each node, allowing various aging effects to be applied for a reliable gate-level circuit aging analysis framework.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.545-549
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• 2010

Low-frequency noise (1/f noise) has been measured in order to analyze the Vth instability of ZnO TFTs having two different active layer thicknesses of 40 nm and 80 nm. Under electrical stress, it was found that the TFTs with the active layer thickness of 80 nm shows smaller threshold voltage shift (${\Delta}V_{th}$) than those with thickness of 40 nm. However the ${\Delta}V_{th}$ is completely relaxed after the removal of DC stress. In order to investigate the cause of this threshold voltage instability, we accomplished the 1/f noise measurement and found that ZnO TFTs exposed the mobility fluctuation properties, in which the noise level increases as the gate bias rises and the normalized drain current noise level($S_{ID}/{I_D}^2$) of the active layer of thickness 80 nm is smaller than that of active layer thickness of thickness 40 nm. This result means that the 80 nm thickness TFTs have a smaller density of traps. This result correlated with the physical characteristics analysis performmed using XRD, which indicated that the grain size increases when the active layer thickness is made thicker. Consequently, the number of preexisting traps in the device increases with decreasing thickness of the active layer and are related closely to the $V_{th}$ instability under electrical stress.