In this paper, we examine the time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) reliability of p-type field-effect transistor devices with 0.7-nm-equivalent- oxide-thickness HfO2 gate dielectric layers. The TDDB distributions indicate ten-year lifetime with operating voltages in excess of 1 V. The reason for this high reliability lies in the high Weibull slopes (∼1.2) of the measured TDDB distributions. In order to understand the mechanism behind the high Weibull slope, a detailed study of the defect generation by stress-induced leakage current (SILC) measurements is presented. The layers show different defect generation behavior as a function of temperature where the SILC generation rate at high temperature is stress voltage dependent. © 2011 IEEE.