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Analytical model of Threshold Voltage and Sub-threshold Slope of SOI and SON
MOSFETs: A comparative study
ABSTRACT
A threshold voltage model based on three- short channel effects, threshold voltage roll-
interface compact capacitive model is off, subthreshold slope.
developed for horizontal SOI/SON MOSFET.
Different short channel effects like drain 1. INTRODUCTION
induced barrier lowering, 2D charge sharing
and fringing field effects are considered. With the emergence of mobile computing and
Analytical simulation is done to understand communication, low power device design and
the threshold voltage performance of silicon implementation have got a significant role to
on insulator (SOI) and silicon on nothing play in VLSI circuit design. Continuous
(SON) MOSFET, under different structural device performance improvement is possible
and operational parameter variations. The only through a combination of device scaling,
performance of the two devices are studied new device structures and material property
and compared in terms of threshold voltage improvement to its fundamental limits [1].
roll-off and subthreshold slope. Performance The down-scaling of MOSFETs has been the
of SON MOSFET is found to be significantly most important and effective way for
different from equivalent SOI device. SON achieving device performance improvement
MOSFET demonstrates lower threshold for VLSI/ULSI circuits. Increased demand for
voltage roll-off and subthreshold slope due to ultra low power consumption, high density
reduced short channel effects. Present and high performance devices is continuously
analysis is found to be useful to figure out the pushing the fabrication process to go beyond
improvement of SON over SOI structures as a the sub-micron technologies such as 45nm,
next generation short channel MOS structure. 32nm and so on. However, the performance
requirement in these advanced technologies
Keywords: Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI), couldn’t be achieved with conventional bulk
silicon-on-Nothing (SON), threshold voltage, CMOS process leading to an alternative,
Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology [2].
Short-channel-effects (SCEs), transistor advantages of fully-depleted (FD) SON
scalability, and circuit performance are architecture comparing to FDSOI, the most
improved by using SOI technology, especially significant one is the reduced electrostatic
ultrathin, fully depleted (FD) MOSFETs [3]. coupling of channel with source/drain and
MOSFET fabricated on insulator (SOI) substrate through the buried layer (BL) [12].
substrate provides an advantage for high Reduced electrostatic coupling through the
speed applications because of the low BL allows in turn to reduce the minimal
parasitic capacitance. As CMOS IC channel length of transistors or to relax the
technology enters the sub-50 nm range, the requirements on Si film thickness [13].
silicon channel and the buried oxide Moreover, since the so-called ‘‘nothing’’ (or
thicknesses must be less than 50 nm and 100 air) layer embedded below the Si active film
nm, respectively, in order to prevent the short has lower dielectric permittivity than oxide,
channel effect (SCE) [4]. The development of the parasitic capacitances between
SOI MOSFET technology has been limited so source/drain and substrate are reduced and
far by the difficulty in controlling the silicon therefore higher circuit speed can be expected
film thickness, adjusting buried oxide layer with SON devices. Thick buried layer can be
thickness, shallow source drain series a drawback of SOI MOSFETs due to large
resistances and the fringing fields [5-7]. A positive charge accumulated in the thick BL,
super SOI, having a silicon film thickness of while in the case of SON MOSFET, no
five nanometers and a buried oxide thickness charge will accumulate in the air-gap [14].
of 20 nm might be capable of suppressing the Although SOI and SON structures have basic
SCE at the CMOS down-scale limit of 20 nm resemblance, accurate modeling of different
channel length, however, the requirements for short channel effects is essential as their
the exceptionally thin silicon and buried oxide influences are different in those structures.
films exceed present manufacturing Adopting similar theoretical approach
capabilities for SOI wafers [8]. developed previously for SOI MOSFET
Although different SCEs are highly threshold voltage modeling [15], threshold
suppressed in SOI structure, SOI structure is voltage model of horizontal SON MOSFET
not fully immune to different SCEs. Among have been previously established [11]. In this
different SCEs related device performance work, a generalized three-interface compact
degradation, higher threshold voltage roll-off capacitive model of horizontal SOI/SON
and degraded subthreshold slope are very MOSFET has been developed. Different
important issues [9]. To overcome such types SCEs like fringing field, substrate coupling
of drawbacks in usual and junction-induced 2D-effects are
SOI structure, different improved SOI incorporated in the present model. A new
structures are suggested in recent times [10]. approach has been adopted for fringing field
Silicon-on-Nothing (SON), an innovative SOI capacitance calculation. Analytical
structure suggested and developed very expressions of threshold voltage and sub-
recently, enables fabrication of extremely thin threshold slope including the fringing
silicon (5 to 20 nm) and buried dielectric (10 capacitance effect are developed from the
to 30 nm) super SOI devices, which are compact capacitive analysis. The performance
capable of quasitotal suppression of SCEs and of the two devices are studied and compared
excellent electrical performances [11]. In a in terms of threshold voltage roll-off and
SON MOSFET, the buried layer of usual SOI subthreshold slope.
MOSFET is replaced with air which causes
less SCEs and leakage currents. Among the
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2. ANALYTICAL MODELING
302
2.2.1 DIBL due to lateral field is due to accumulation of holes, which are
generated by impact ionization, at the channel
Voltage doping transformation is a technique, back interface [17].
which can be used to take into account the Fringing field effect in a fully depleted
effect of channel lateral field related DIBL SOI/SON MOSFET is responsible for a
into quasi 1D threshold voltage analysis [16]. dramatic increase of DIBL [5]. The effect of
According to VDT, the effect of lateral field fringing field can be reduced by using lower
in the channel from drain side is equivalent to dielectric constant material in the BL. This is
a reduction in the effective channel doping. actually done in SON structure by using air in
Using VDT for modeling short channel the BL. Two-dimensional potential profile in
effects, the effective channel doping is given the BL is quite complex. As a result, two-
by [11]; dimensional analysis of the fringing field
2 V * effect has not been developed properly [6]. A
N A* N A Si 2 DS compact model of fringing field induced
qLeff
(4) parasitic capacitance can be developed based
Here, εSi is the dielectric constant of silicon, q on conformal mapping technique.
is the electronic charge, N A is the silicon A schematic view of SOI/SON MOSFET
impurity doping concentration, VDS *
is the with fringing-field lines emanating from the
drain to the channel region is shown in Fig. 3.
effective drain to source voltage which is
Assuming that the source is at zero potential,
given by;
fringing field emanating only from the drain
*
VDS VDS 2Vbi S 2 S1 side is considered in the present analysis.
2 Vbi S 2 S1 VDS Vbi S 2 S1 Using conformal mapping, the original
structure can be converted into an equivalent
(2)
two-plate system with an angle of inclination
Here VDS is the drain-to-source voltage, Vbi is
of 180 degree as shown in Fig. 3. The
the built in potential, ψ1 and ψ2 are the channel back interface and drain back
channel front and back interface potential, interface are considered as the two plates
respectively. Appling voltage doping which are assumed to be of unit area. The two
transformation, the effective channel plates are separated by the depletion layer
depletion capacitance is given as; formed at the channel-drain junction.
*
dQd qN A t Si Leff
C Sieff,d
d S1 S 2 (3)
Here Qd is the total charge per unit area in silicon
in the channel.
303
180 degree [18,19]. The capacitance per unit Here, εBL/air is the dielectric constant of buried
longitudinal length of the line is [18]; layer/air. As the contribution from the higher
CFD / S CFin CFout (4) order terms is negligible, contribution up to
the fourth ordered term is taken into
Here C F is the inner capacitance and C F is
in out
consideration.
the outer capacitance. For the structure Assuming that the substrate is depleted, it can
considered here both the capacitances will be be modeled with an equivalent capacitor CS
same and, which can be calculated from CS=εSi/WS,
K ' (kin / out ) where WS is the substrate depletion layer
C FD / S 2 BL / air (5)
K (kin / out ) width [11]. The charge induced in the
Here, K ' (k in / out ) K (k in' / out ) and using the substrate and BL/air interface can be written
as CS(VB-VFB3) where VB is the substrate bias.
same approach as in Ref. 20 we can write; For sufficiently thick BL, substrate depletion
will be negligible and under such condition CS
LP ( LP LF LD ) can be replaced by a fitting parameter.
k in / out and
( LP LF )( LP LD )
2.3 Threshold Voltage Model
LF LD
k '
.
(2 LP LF )(2 LP LD )
in / out
Considering equilibrium charge conservation
Since the source and drain are heavily doped at each node in Fig. 2., surface potentials 1,
n+ regions and the channel is p type, an 2 and3 can be expressed as;
abrupt junction will be formed with a 1 A 1C Sieff,d CGOX (VG1 VFB1 ) C Sieff,d 2
depletion width of LP. If device metallurgical
(7)
channel length is L then effective channel
length LF=L-2*LP and LD/S is the length of the 2 B 2 C Sieff,d C B 3
(8)
drain/source side. As K (k in / out ) is the (VDS VFB 2 )C FD C Sieff,d 1
complete elliptic integral of first kind, taking 3C 2C B (VB VFB 3 )CS (9)
the expansion, the final expression of the
Here, A CGOX Cif 1 , B C B C Cif 2
D
capacitance is expressed as ; F
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C5 CGOX (VG1 VFB1 ) et Si LN A modification of 2 in SON structure due to air
2t Si Si , in the box region will initiate considerable
(VDS 2Vbi 2C1 ) performance variation of SON over SOI
LF
structure.
t
C6 2(2 C1C 2 ) Si Si , dV
The sub-threshold swing S ( 2.3k B T G1 )
LF d 1
t which can be calculated using Eqs.3 and 7 is
C7 B 2(1 C1C 2 ) Si Si ,
LF given as;
C8 (VDS VFB 2 )C FD et Si LF N A
eff 2
S 2.3k B T C Si
A
C Si B C BOX
,d
eff
,d
2t Si Si
CGOX C
(VDS 2Vbi 2C1 )
LF (17)
and r is a fitting parameter, representing 3. RESULTS & DISCUSSIONS
resemblance of substrate resistance effect
with negligible substrate depletion. The plots of threshold voltage and sub-
Using Crammer’s rule, the expression for 1, threshold slope with channel length are shown
2 and 3 are obtained as; in Figs. 4 and 5, respectively. The threshold
voltage roll-off (TVRO) and subthreshold
CC 5 C 7 C5 C B2 CC 4 C8 rC4 C BVB
1 , slope (STS) reduces with increasing channel
CC 3 C 7 C3 C B2 C 4 C 6 C length due to reduced SCEs with channel
(13) length. TVRO predicted by the analytical
CC 3 C8 rC3 C BVB CC 5 C 6 model is compared with the experimental
2 and results of SOI structure available in reference
CC 3 C 7 C3 C B2 C 4 C 6 C
20 and good agreement are obtained
(14)
indicating the correctness of the model. It is
rC C V C B C3 C8 rC4 C 6VB C B C5 C 6
3 3 7 B found from both the plots that the TVRO and
CC 3 C 7 C3 C B2 C 4 C 6 C STS are reduced in case of SON structure
(15) compared to SOI structure.
305
Fig. 5. Plot of Subthreshold slope with channel length Fig. 7. Subthreshold Slope with gate oxide thickness
for SOI (dashed line) and SON (solid line) MOSFET. for SOI (dashed line) and SON (solid line) MOSFET.
Parameter values are same as in Fig.1 and also the Significance of symbol and parameters values is same
symbols have the same significance. as in Fig.6.
The potential coupling ratio 1 2 reduces Increasing BL or air layer thickness reduces
with decreasing GOX layer thickness. This PCR due to reduced 2 as a result TVRO and
increases the SCEs thereby increasing the STS are reduced. This can be observed in the
TVRO and STS. The performance of SON results presented in Figs. 8 and 9,
structure is found to be superior to SOI respectively.
structure and their comparison is shown in
Figs. 6 and 7, respectively.
306
Fig. 11. Subthreshold slope with substrate bias for
Fig. 9. Subthreshold slope with gate oxide thickness for SON (dashed line) and SOI (solid line) MOSFET.
SON (dashed line) and SOI (solid line) MOSFET. Significance of symbol and parameters values is same
Significance of symbol and parameters values is same as in Fig.6.
as in Fig.6.
Effective shift in TVRO and STS with and
without SCEs are plotted with channel length
Variations of threshold voltage and
subthreshold slope with the substrate voltage as | Vthsft | and SS Shift in Figs. 12 and 13,
(VB) are shown in the Figs. 10 and 11, respectively. In case of SON structure,
respectively. Reduction of potential coupling threshold voltage and subthreshold slope shift
ratio (PCR) with increasing substrate bias is minimum due to less SCEs.
explains the nature of these graphs.
307
ACKNOWLADGEMENT
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