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Gate-Induced Drain Leakage Current in The indirect tunneling takes place between the top of the valence
MOS Devices band and the bottom of the conduction band located at different
points in k space. In this case, the tunneling current density is given
V. Nathan and N. C. Das by P I
j = AqV[(n + 1) exp (-B(Eg + A w ) ' . ~
Abstract-The gate-induced drain leakage current (GIDL) in typical
n-channel MOSFET's is calculated for direct and indirect tunneling + n exp (-B(Eg - h ~ ) ' . ~ ] , (4)
from the valence band to the conduction band of silicon, as well as
tunneling from the conduction band minimum of silicon to the inter- where
face traps, and compared to experimental data. The results show that
in silicon MOSFET's the GIDL is dominated by tunneling from the
conduction band to the interface traps, and the contribution from both
direct and indirect hand-to-band tunneling is negligible.
n is the phonon occupation number, and
I. INTRODUCTION B = 22.5m:2/3hq~.
Recently there has been considerable interest in understanding
In (4), the first term inside the square bracket corresponds to tun-
the drain-induced leakage current in silicon MOSFET's [1]-[7].
neling accompanied by phonon emission, while the second term
This interest stems from the constraints that the GIDL imposes on
corresponds to phonon absorption, w is the phonon frequency,and
the scaling of oxide thickness and power supply voltages. Various
the subscripts x, y, and 2 on the effective masses refer to their com-
authors have attributed the GIDL to the tunneling of electrons from
ponents along these directions. M 2 is the square of the electron-
the valence band of silicon into its conduction band. However, these
phonon interaction matrix element with units of energy2-length3and
claims are based on qualitative agreement between the slopes of
is given by 191
the experimental and theoretical curves. Most of these papers do
not contain complete formulas for calculating the tunneling cur- M 2 = C2qh/2csp, (7)
rent, or quantitative calculations of the tunneling current for com-
parison with experimental data. The one paper [4] where a com- where C is the coupling energy, c, is the speed of sound in the
plete formula is presented contains an error, in that the material, and p is the mass density.
preexponential factor in the expression for the tunneling current is In addition to the direct and indirect band-to-band tunneling de-
relevant for the case of direct tunneling, while the exponential fac- scribed by (1)-(7), tunneling assisted by trap levels in the forbid-
tor pertains to the indirect tunneling case. In this brief, we present den gap of the semiconductor is also possible. In this case, the
complete formulas to predict the tunneling currents due to direct electron tunnels from the conduction band of silicon to the interface
and indirect band-to-band tunneling, as well as for interface trap traps, followed by a transition to the valence band [lo]. The re-
assisted tunneling, and compare the predictions to recent experi- sulting current density will be the same as that given by (1) (for
mental data. The results show that in silicon MOSFET's, the GIDL direct tunneling) or (4) (for indirect tunneling) when the following
is controlled not by either direct or indirect band-to-band tunnel- two modifications are made: 1) the energy gap Eg is replaced by ER
ing, but by interface trap assisted tunneling. - E,, where E, is the trap energy measured from the valence band
edge (this accounts for the fact that the electrons have to tunnel
11. TUNNELING
THEORY through a barrier of height Eg - E, only); and 2) the right-hand
side of equation (1) or (4) is multiplied by a factor (trap density of
The complete formulas for both direct and indirect tunneling have stateshalence band density of states) (this factor accounts for the
been worked out by Kane [8]. Direct tunneling occurs between two fact that the tunneling takes place from the conduction band to the
extrema located at the same point in k space. The formula for the trap states, and not to the valence band).
resulting current density j is
(EI2)qV.
j = (qm,/ 18h3) exp [ - ~ ( m , )Ei.5/21.5qhc]
~.~ (1) TO SILICON
111. APPLICATION MOSFET
In ( l ) , q is the electronic charge, A is Planck's constant divided by Various expressions for the electric field E have been used by
27r, ERis the energy gap of the semiconductor, E is the electric field, different authors in the literature [I], [7], [ l l ] . We choose to em-
Vis the applied bias, and m, is the reduced effective mass given by ploy the following well-founded approximation from [ 111 in our
calculations:
l/m, = l / m v + l/mc, (2)
where m, and m, are the valence band and conduction band effec-
tive masses, respectively. Also, in ( l ) , E is an energy parameter where vd and Vg are the drain and gate voltages, respectively, to,
given by is the thickness of the gate oxide, and W is the depletion width
E = 225qA~/3~(m,Eg)0.5. (3) [Ill.
The energy gap and effective mass appear in the exponential in
Manuscript received September 25, 1992; revised April 20, 1993. This (1) and (4), and accurate values of these are necessary in order to
work was supported in part by an Air Force Materiel Command/National obtain reliable results. In this work, the temperature dependent in-
Research Council Postdoctoral Research Associateship (NCD). The review
of this brief was arranged by Associate Editor K. Shenai. direct energy gap of silicon (in eV) was calculated from the equa-
The authors are with Phillips Laboratory, Passive Sensors Branch, 3550 tion 1121:
Aberdeen Ave SE, Kirtland AFB, NM 871 17-5776.
IEEE Log Number 92 1092. ER = 1.17 - 4.72 X x T2/(T + 636), (9)
Authorized licensed use limited to: Dr B C Roy Engineering College. Downloaded on March 16,2010 at 05:05:52 EDT from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 40, NO. 10, OCTOBER 1993 1889
TABLE I
LISTOF SYMBOLS
where T is the temperature, while the direct gap was assumed to tively. The acceptor and donor densities were, respectively, 1.5 X
be constant at 3.5 eV. The effective mass of the conduction band 10’5/cm3, and 8 x lOI8/cm3. The devices were assembled in stan-
is given by dard ceramic packages and mounted in a vacuum chamber. During
the measurements, a variable negative bias was applied to the gate,
m, = (mcxmrymc~)(‘/3’, (10) while a positive bias of 7 V was applied to the drain, and the sub-
strate and source were grounded [15]. To determine the origin of
with m, = 0.98, and mcy = m,, = 0.19 [12]. The effective mass the off-state current, we measured all the four currents of the de-
of the valence band is isotropic, and is given by vice, i.e., source, substrate, drain, and gate currents, as a function
of gate bias, using a Keithley 617 electrometer and HP 4145 par-
ametric analyzer. The tunneling current was found to flow between
the drain and substrate, while the gate and source currents were
where ??t,h and mhhare the light hole and heavy hole effective masses
found to be negligible.
with values of 0.16 and 0.49, respectively [12]. For silicon, M 2 is
of the order of erg2 cm3, and the phonon energy is approxi-
mately 60 meV [9]. V. RESULTS
In evaluating the trap assisted tunneling current, the trap energy
The tunneling current densities due to direct interband tunneling,
level, trap density, and valence band density of states are required.
indirect interband tunneling, trap assisted direct tunneling, and trap
It is assumed that the interface trap states serve the role of the final
assisted indirect tunneling were calculated with the help of equa-
states for the tunneling. It has been reported that the interface trap
tions (1)-(12) for several values of V = V g , and Vd = 7 V. From
distribution has peaks at 0.05 eV above the center of the indirect
these, the currents due to the above mechanisms were obtained by
gap [13]. In our calculations, we use this energy for E,. The areal
multiplying j by the area of the drain-substrate junction close to
density of these interface traps is approximately 0.5 X 10”/cm2
the gate where the tunneling takes place. This area is given by the
[14], and since the interface traps are localized within 10 A from
product of the drain width (1 1 p ) and junction depth (0.25 p ) . Table
the Si/Si02 interface [13], the volume density of interface traps is
I is a list of symbols used in this work. Table I1 shows the calcu-
approximately 0.5 X 10i7/cm3. The valence band density of states
lated values, along with the values of the measured GIDL current
(N,,) is calculated from the expression [ 121
for different gate biases, while the drain bias was kept constant at
Nu = 2(m,kT/2~h~)’.~, 7 V. In this table, I, I,, li,and I, are, respectively, the values of
the current obtained from the experiment, direct band-to-band tun-
where k is Boltzmann’s constant. neling calculation, indirect band-to-band tunneling calculation, and
trap assisted indirect tunneling calculation. It is seen that the cur-
rent due to direct and indirect band-to-band tunneling are many
IV. EXPERIMENT
orders of magnitude smaller than the measured current, while the
The n-channel MOSFET’s used in our experiments were fabri- trap assisted tunneling current is larger than the experimental data
cated with n+ polygate using a radiation hardened process. The by a factor between three and six. This overestimation arises due
oxide thickness, channel length, channel width, and junction depth to the several approximations involved in the theoretical calcula-
of the devices were 250 A, 1.0 p m , I 1 pm, and 0.25 pm, respec- tions, especially regarding the electric field, trap energy, and trap
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1890 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES, VOL. 40, NO. IO, OCTOBER 1993
TABLE I1
OF CALCULATED
COMPARISON AND MEASURED
GIDL CURRENT I N n-CHANNEL MOSFET’S
density. In view of these, the agreement between trap assisted tun- A Study of the Electrical Series Resistance of Silicon
neling current and the experimental data should be considered good. IMPATT Diodes
The results definitely show that the gate induced drain leakage cur-
rent in silicon MOSFET’s arises from interface trap assisted tun- M. Mitra, M. Das, S. Kar, and S . K . Roy
neling, and not from band-to-band tunneling.
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