Direct Tunneling Currents Through Gate Dielectrics in Deep Submicron MOSFETs

A direct tunneling model through gate dielectric s in CMOS devices in the frame of WKB approximation is reported.In the model,an im proved one-band effective mass approximation is used for the hole quantization, where valence band mixing is taken into account.By comparing to the experiments, the model is demonstrated to be applicable to both electron and hole tunneling c urrents in CMOS devices.The effect of the dispersion in oxide energy gap on the tunneling current is also studied.This model can be further extended to study th e direct tunneling current in future high-k materials.

Simulation and Experimental Research on a Schottky Gate Resonant Tunneling Transistor

A Schottky gate resonant tunneling transistor （SGRTT） is fabricated. Relying on simulation by ATLAS software,we find that the gate voltages can be used to control the current of SGRTT when the emitter terminal is grounded and a positive bias voltage is applied to the collector terminal. When the collector terminal is grounded, the gate voltages can control the peak voltage. As revealed by measurement results, the reason is that the gate voltages and the electric field distribution on emitter and collector terminal change the distribution of the depletion region.

Optimization of ambipolar current and analog/RF performance for T-shaped tunnel field-effect transistor with gate dielectric spacer

A new T-shaped tunnel field-effect transistor(TTFET) with gate dielectric spacer(GDS) structure is proposed in this paper. To further studied the effects of GDS structure on the TTFET, detailed device characteristics such as current-voltage relationships, energy band diagrams, band-to-band tunneling(BTBT) rate and the magnitude of the electric field are investigated by using TCAD simulation. It is found that compared with conventional TTFET and TTFET with gate-drain overlap(GDO) structure, GDS-TTFET not only has the minimum ambipolar current but also can suppress the ambipolar current under a more extensive bias range. Furthermore, the analog/RF performances of GDS-TTFET are also investigated in terms of transconductance, gate-source capacitance, gate-drain capacitance, cutoff frequency, and gain bandwidth production. By inserting a low-κ spacer layer between the gate electrode and the gate dielectric, the GDS structure can effectively reduce parasitic capacitances between the gate and the source/drain, which leads to better performance in term of cutoff frequency and gain bandwidth production. Finally, the thickness of the gate dielectric spacer is optimized for better ambipolar current suppression and improved analog/RF performance.

Heteromaterial-gate line tunnel field-effect transistor based on Si/Ge heterojunction

A Si/Ge heterojunction line tunnel field-effect transistor （LTFET） with a symmetric heteromaterial gate is proposed. Compared to single-material-gate LTFETs, the heteromaterial gate LTFET shows an off-state leakage current that is three orders of magnitude lower, and steeper subthreshold characteristics, without degradation in the on-state current. We reveal that these improvements are due to the induced local potential barrier, which arises from the energy-band profile modulation effect. Based on this novel structure, the impacts of the physical parameters of the gap region between the pocket and the drain, including the work-function mismatch between the pocket gate and the gap gate, the type of dopant, and the doping concentration, on the device performance are investigated. Simulation and theoretical calculation results indicate that the gap gate material and n-type doping level in the gap region should be optimized simultaneously to make this region fully depleted for further suppression of the off-state leakage current.

Double-gate tunnel field-effect transistor:Gate threshold voltage modeling and extraction

The tunnel field-effect transistor(TFET) is a potential candidate for the post-CMOS era.As one of the most important electrical parameters of a device,double gate TFET(DG-TFET) gate threshold voltage was studied.First,a numerical simulation study of transfer characteristic and gate threshold voltage in DG-TFET was reported.Then,a simple analytical model for DG-TFET gate threshold voltage VTG was built by solving quasi-two-dimensional Poisson equation in Si film.The model as a function of the drain voltage,the Si layer thickness,the gate length and the gate dielectric was discussed.It is shown that the proposed model is consistent with the simulation results.This model should be useful for further investigation of performance of circuits containing TFETs.

Extended-source broken gate tunnel FET for improving direct current and analog/radio-frequency performance

The various advantages of extended-source(ES),broken gate(BG),and hetero-gate-dielectric(HGD)technology are blended together for the proposed tunnel field-effect transistor(ESBG TFET)in order to enhance the direct-current and analog/radio-frequency performance.The source of the ESBG TFET is extended into channel for the purpose of increasing the point and line tunneling in the device at the tunneling junction,and then,the on-state current for the ESBG TFET increases.The influence of the source region length on the direct-current and radio-frequency performance parameters of the ESBG TFET is analyzed in detail.The results show that the proposed TFET exhibits a high on-state current to off-state current ratio of 1013,large transconductance of 1200μS/μm,high cut-off frequency of 72.8 GHz,and high gain bandwidth product of 14.3 GHz.Apart from these parameters,the ESBG TFET also demonstrates high linearity distortion parameters in terms of the second-and third-order voltage intercept points,the third-order input interception point,and the third-order intermodulation distortion.Therefore,the ESBG TFET greatly promotes the application potential of conventional TFETs.

Characteristics of cylindrical surrounding-gate GaAs_xSb_(1-x)/In_yGa_(1-y)As heterojunction tunneling field-effect transistors

A Ⅲ-Ⅴ heterojunction tunneling field-effect transistor(TFET) can enhance the on-state current effectively,and GaAsSb/InGaAs heterojunction exhibits better performance with the adjustable band alignment by modulating the alloy composition.In this paper,the performance of the cylindrical surrounding-gate GaAsSb/InGaAs heterojunction TFET with gate-drain underlap is investigated by numerical simulation.We validate that reducing drain doping concentration and increasing gate-drain underlap could be effective ways to reduce the off-state current and subthreshold swing(SS),while increasing source doping concentration and adjusting the composition of GaAsSbInGaAs can improve the on-state current.In addition,the resonant TFET based on GaAsSb/InGaAs is also studied,and the result shows that the minimum and average of SS reach 11 mV/decade and 20 mV/decade for five decades of drain current,respectively,and is much superior to the conventional TFET.

An analytic model for gate-all-around silicon nanowire tunneling field effect transistors

An analytical model of gate-all-around （GAA） silicon nanowire tunneling field effect transistors （NW-TFETs） is developted based on the surface potential solutions in the channel direction and considering the band to band tunneling （BTBT） efficiency. The three-dimensional Poisson equation is solved to obtain the surface potential distributions in the partition regions along the channel direction for the NW-TFET, and a tunneling current model using Kane＇s expression is developed. The validity of the developed model is shown by the good agreement between the model predictions and the TCAD simulation results.

Gate-to-body tunneling current model for silicon-on-insulator MOSFETs

A gate-to-body tunneling current model for silicon-on-insulator （SOl） devices is simulated. As verified by the mea- sured data, the model, considering both gate voltage and drain voltage dependence as well as image force-induced barrier low effect, provides a better prediction of the tunneling current and gate-induced floating body effect than the BSIMSOI4 model. A delayed gate-induced floating body effect is also predicted by the model.

Ge/Si heterojunction L-shape tunnel field-effect transistors with hetero-gate-dielectric

A Ge/Si heterojunction L-shaped tunnel field-effect transistor combined with hetero-gate-dielectric （GHL-TFET） is proposed and investigated by TCAD simulation. Current-voltage characteristics, energy-band diagrams, and the distri- bution of the band-to-band tunneling （BTBT） generation rate of GHL-TFET are analyzed. In addition, the effect of the vertical channel width on the ON-current is studied and the thickness of the gate dielectric is optimized for better suppression of ambipolar current. Moreover, analog/RF figure-of-merits of GHL-TFET are also investigated in terms of the cut-off frequency and gain bandwidth production. Simulation results indicate that the ON-current of GHL-TFET is increased by about three orders of magnitude compared with that of the conventional L-shaped TFET. Besides, the introduction of the hetero-gate-dielectric not only suppresses the ambipolar current effectively but also improves the analog/RF performance drastically. It is demonstrated that the maximum cut-off frequency of GHL-TFET is about 160 GHz, which is 20 times higher than that of the conventional L-shaped TFET.

Double-gate-all-around tunnel field-effect transistor

In this work, a double-gate-all-around tunneling field-effect transistor is proposed. The performance of the novel device is studied by numerical simulation. The results show that with a thinner body and an additional core gate, the novel device achieves a steeper subthreshold slope, less susceptibility to the short channel effect, higher on-state current, and larger on/off current ratio than the traditional gate-all-around tunneling field-effect transistor. The excellent performance makes the proposed structure more attractive to further dimension scaling.

Gate Current for MOSFETs with High k Dielectric Materials

The MOSFET gate currents of high k gate dielectrics due to direct tunneling are investigated by using a new direct tunneling current model developed.The model includes both the inversion layer quantization effect with finite barrier height and the polysilicon depletion effect.The impacts of dielectric constant and conduction band offset as well as the band gap on the gate current are discussed.The results indicate that the gate dielectric materials with higher dielectric constant,larger conduction band offset and the larger band gap are necessary to reduce the gate current.The calculated results can be used as a guide to select the appropriate high k gate dielectric materials for MOSFETs.

Real-time analysis and prediction of shield cutterhead torque using optimized gated recurrent unit neural network

An accurate prediction of earth pressure balance(EPB)shield moving performance is important to ensure the safety tunnel excavation.A hybrid model is developed based on the particle swarm optimization(PSO)and gated recurrent unit(GRU)neural network.PSO is utilized to assign the optimal hyperparameters of GRU neural network.There are mainly four steps:data collection and processing,hybrid model establishment,model performance evaluation and correlation analysis.The developed model provides an alternative to tackle with time-series data of tunnel project.Apart from that,a novel framework about model application is performed to provide guidelines in practice.A tunnel project is utilized to evaluate the performance of proposed hybrid model.Results indicate that geological and construction variables are significant to the model performance.Correlation analysis shows that construction variables(main thrust and foam liquid volume)display the highest correlation with the cutterhead torque(CHT).This work provides a feasible and applicable alternative way to estimate the performance of shield tunneling.

The conduction mechanism of stress induced leakage current through ultra-thin gate oxide under constant voltage stresses

The conduction mechanism of stress induced leakage current （SILC） through 2nm gate oxide is studied over a gate voltage range between 1.7V and stress voltage under constant voltage stress （CVS）. The simulation results show that the SILC is formed by trap-assisted tunnelling （TAT） process which is dominated by oxide traps induced by high field stresses. Their energy levels obtained by this work are approximately 1.9eV from the oxide conduction band, and the traps are believed to be the oxygen-related donor-like defects induced by high field stresses. The dependence of the trap density on stress time and oxide electric field is also investigated.

Investigation of gate oxide traps effect on NAND flash memory by TCAD simulation

The effects of gate oxide traps on gate leakage current and device performance of metal–oxide–nitride–oxide–silicon(MONOS)-structured NAND flash memory are investigated through Sentaurus TCAD. The trap-assisted tunneling(TAT)model is implemented to simulate the leakage current of MONOS-structured memory cell. In this study, trap position, trap density, and trap energy are systematically analyzed for ascertaining their influences on gate leakage current, program/erase speed, and data retention properties. The results show that the traps in blocking layer significantly enhance the gate leakage current and also facilitates the cell program/erase. Trap density ~10^(18) cm^(-3) and trap energy ~ 1 eV in blocking layer can considerably improve cell program/erase speed without deteriorating data retention. The result conduces to understanding the role of gate oxide traps in cell degradation of MONOS-structured NAND flash memory.

Two-dimensional threshold voltage model of a nanoscale silicon-on-insulator tunneling field-effect transistor

The tunneling field-effect transistor（TFET） is a potential candidate for the post-CMOS era.In this paper,a threshold voltage model is developed for this new kind of device.First,two-dimensional（2D） models are used to describe the distributions of potential and electric field in the channel and two depletion regions.Then based on the physical definition of threshold voltage for the nanoscale TFET,the threshold voltage model is developed.The accuracy of the proposed model is verified by comparing the calculated results with the 2D device simulation data.It has been demonstrated that the effects of varying the device parameters can easily be investigated using the model presented in this paper.This threshold voltage model provides a valuable reference to TFET device design,simulation,and fabrication.

Effects of back gate bias on radio-frequency performance in partially depleted silicon-on-inslator nMOSFETs

The effects of back gate bias(BGEs) on radio-frequency(RF) performances in PD SOI n MOSFETs are presented in this paper. Floating body(FB) device, T-gate body-contact(TB) device, and tunnel diode body-contact(TDBC) device, of which the supply voltages are all 1.2 V, are compared under different back gate biases by different figures of merit, such as cut-off frequency( fT), maximum frequency of oscillation( fmax), etc. Because of the lack of a back gate conducting channel, the drain conductance(gd) of TDBC transistor shows a smaller degradation than those of the others, and the trans-conductance(gm) of TDBC is almost independent of back gate bias. The values of fT of TDBC are also kept nearly constant under different back gate biases. However, RF performances of FB and TB each show a significant degradation when the back gate bias is larger than ～ 20 V. The results indicate that TDBC structures could effectively improve the back gate bias in RF performance.

Reverse gate leakage mechanism of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with Au-free gate

The reverse gate leakage mechanism of W-gate and Ti N-gate AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors(HEMTs)with N2plasma surface treatment is investigated using current–voltage(I–V)and capacitance–voltage(C–V)characteristics and theoretical calculation analysis.It is found that the main reverse gate leakage mechanism of both devices is the trapassisted tunneling(TAT)mechanism in the entire reverse bias region(-30 V to 0 V).It is also found that the reverse gate leakage current of the W-gate Al GaN/GaN HEMTs is smaller than that of the TiN gate at high reverse gate bias voltage.Moreover,the activation energies of the extracted W-gate and Ti N-gate AlGaN/GaN HEMTs are 0.0551 e V–0.127 eV and0.112 eV–0.201 eV,respectively.

Ambipolar performance improvement of the C-shaped pocket TFET with dual metal gate and gate–drain underlap

Dual-metal gate and gate–drain underlap designs are introduced to reduce the ambipolar current of the device based on the C-shaped pocket TFET(CSP-TFET).The effects of gate work function and gate–drain underlap length on the DC characteristics and analog/RF performance of CSP-TFET devices,such as the on-state current(I_(on)),ambipolar current(I_(amb)),transconductance(g_(m)),cut-off frequency(f_(T))and gain–bandwidth product(GBP),are analyzed and compared in this work.Also,a combination of both the dual-metal gate and gate–drain underlap designs has been proposed for the C-shaped pocket dual metal underlap TFET(CSP-DMUN-TFET),which contains a C-shaped pocket area that significantly increases the on-state current of the device;this combination design substantially reduces the ambipolar current.The results show that the CSP-DMUN-TFET demonstrates an excellent performance,including high I_(on)(9.03×10^(-4)A/μm),high I_(on)/I_(off)(~10^(11)),low SS_(avg)(~13 mV/dec),and low I_(amb)(2.15×10^(-17)A/μm).The CSP-DMUN-TFET has the capability to fully suppress ambipolar currents while maintaining high on-state currents,making it a potential replacement in the next generation of semiconductor devices.

DC and analog/RF performance of C-shaped pocket TFET(CSP-TFET)with fully overlapping gate

A C-shaped pocket tunnel field effect transistor(CSP-TFET)has been designed and optimized based on the traditional double-gate TFETs by introducing a C-shaped pocket region between the source and channel to improve the device performance.A gate-to-pocket overlapping structure is also examined in the proposed CSP-TFET to enhance the gate controllability.The effects of the pocket length,pocket doping concentration and gate-to-pocket overlapping structure on the DC and analog/RF characteristics of the CSP-TFET are estimated after calibrating the tunneling model in double-gate TFETs.The DC and analog/RF performance such as on-state current(Ion),on/off current ratio(Ion/Ioff),subthreshold swing(SS)transconductance(g;),cut-off frequency(f_(T))and gain-bandwidth product(GBP)are investigated.The optimized CSPTFET device exhibits excellent performance with high I_(off)(9.98×10^(-4)A/μm),high I_(on)/I_(off)(~10^(11)),as well as low SS(~12 m V/dec).The results reveal that the CSP-TFET device could be a potential alternative for the next generation of semiconductor devices.