In recent years, transistor junction formation in complementary metal oxide semiconductor devices by ion implantation has encountered serious limitations due to transient enhanced diffusion (TED) during the annealing step. Current models of TED rely heavily on detailed simulations of the complex diffusion-reaction network that governs TED, and often rely on fitted parameters whose values are uncertain. The present work uses a more rigorous set of rate parameters obtained from a maximum likelihood estimation to develop a relatively simple analytical treatment of boron TED that is capable of estimating the degree of profile spreading and the temperature at which TED should begin to occur significantly. The treatment suggests that reduction of TED should focus on implantation schemes and heating programs designed to decrease the number of clusters slightly smaller than the very largest. (C) 2003 The Electrochemical Society.