Negative Bias-Temperature Instabilities and Low-Frequency Noise in Ge FinFETs

Negative bias-temperature instabilities and low-frequency noise are investigated in strained Ge ${p}$ MOS FinFETs with SiO textsubscript 2/HfO textsubscript 2 gate dielectrics. The extracted activation energies for NBTI in Ge ${p}$ MOS FinFETs are smaller than for Si ${p}$ MOSFETs. Low-frequency noise magnitudes at lower temperatures are unaffected by negative-bias-temperature stress (NBTS), but increase significantly for temperatures above $\sim 230$ K. The increased noise due to NBTS is attributed primarily to the activation of oxygen vacancies and hydrogen-related defects in the SiO2 and HfO2 layers.