Vertical InAs Nanowire Devices and RF Circuits

Recent decades have seen an exponential increase in the functionality of electronic circuits, allowing for continuous innovation, which benefits society. This increase in functionality has been facilitated by scaling down the dimensions of the most important electronic component in modern electronics: the Si-based MOSFET. By reducing the size of the device, more transistors per chip area is possible. Smaller MOSFETs are also faster and more energy-efficient. In state of the art MOSFETs, the key dimensions are only few nanometers, rapidly approaching a point where the current scaling scheme may not be maintained. Research is ongoing to improve the device performance, mainly focusing on material and structural improvements to the existing MOSFET architecture. In this thesis, MOSFETs based on nanowires, are investigated. Taking advantage of the nanowire geometry, the gate can be wrapped all-around the nanowires for excellent control of the channel. The nanowires are made in a high-mobility III-V semiconductor, InAs, allowing for faster electrons and higher currents than Si. This device type is a potential candidate to either replace or complement Si-based MOSFETs in digital and analogue applications. Single balanced down-conversion mixer circuits were fabricated, consisting of three vertically aligned InAs nanowire MOSFETs and two nanowire resistors. These circuits are shown to operate with voltage gain in the GHz-regime. Individual transistors demonstrated operation with gain at several tens of GHz. A method to characterise the resistivity and metal-semiconductor contact quality has been developed, using the transmission line method adapted for vertical nanowires. This method has successfully been applied to InAs nanowires and shown that low-resistance contacts to these nanowires are possible. To optimise the performance of the device and reach as close to intrinsic operation as possible, parasitic capacitances and resistances in the device structure need to be minimised. A novel self-aligned gate-last fabrication method for vertical InAs nanowire transistors has been developed, that allows for an optimum design of the channel and the contact regions. Transistors fabricated using this method exhibit the best DC performance, in terms of a compromise between the normalised transconductance and sub-threshold swing, of any previously reported vertical nanowire MOSFET

Electrical Characterisation of III-V Nanowire MOSFETs

The ever increasing demand for faster and more energy-efficient electricalcomputation and communication presents severe challenges for the semiconductor industry and particularly for the metal-oxidesemiconductorfield-effect transistor (MOSFET), which is the workhorse of modern electronics. III-V materials exhibit higher carrier mobilities than the most commonly used MOSFET material Si so that the realisation of III-V MOSFETs can enable higher operation speeds and lower drive voltages than that which is possible in Si electronics. A lowering of the transistor drive voltage can be further facilitated by employing gate-all-around nanowire geometries or novel operation principles. However, III-V materials bring about their own challenges related to material quality and to the quality of the gate oxide on top of a III-V MOSFET channel.This thesis presents detailed electrical characterisations of two types of (vertical) III-V nanowire transistors: MOSFETs based on conventional thermionic emission; and Tunnel FETs, which utilise quantum-mechanical tunnelling instead to control the device current and reach inverse subthreshold slopes below the thermal limit of 60 mV/decade. Transistor characterisations span over fourteen orders of magnitude in frequency/time constants and temperatures from 11 K to 370 K.The first part of the thesis focusses on the characterisation of electrically active material defects (‘traps’) related to the gate stack. Low-frequency noise measurements yielded border trap densities of 10^18 to 10^20 cm^-3 eV^-1 and hysteresis measurements yielded effective trap densities – projected to theoxide/semiconductor interface – of 2x10^12 to 3x10^13 cm^-2 eV^-1. Random telegraph noise measurements revealed that individual oxide traps can locally shift the channel energy bands by a few millielectronvolts and that such defects can be located at energies from inside the semiconductor band gap all the way into the conduction band.Small-signal radio frequency (RF) measurements revealed that parts of the wide oxide trap distribution can still interact with carriers in the MOSFET channel at gigahertz frequencies. This causes frequency hystereses in the small-signal transconductance and capacitances and can decrease the RF gains by a few decibels. A comprehensive small-signal model was developed, which takes into account these dispersions, and the model was applied to guide improvements of the physical structure of vertical RF MOSFETs. This resulted in values for the cutoff frequency fT and the maximum oscillation frequency fmax of about 150 GHz in vertical III-V nanowire MOSFETs.Bias temperature instability measurements and the integration of (lateral) III-V nanowire MOSFETs in a back end of line process were carried out as complements to the main focus of this thesis. The results of this thesis provide a broad perspective of the properties of gate oxide traps and of the RF performance of III-V nanowire transistors and can act as guidelines for further improvement and finally the integration of III-V nanowire MOSFETs in circuits

High-frequency InGaAs tri-gate MOSFETs with fmax of 400 GHz

Extremely scaled down tri-gate RF metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) utilising lateral nanowires as the channel, with gate length and nanowire width both of 20 nm are reported. These devices exhibit simultaneous extrapolated ft and fmax of 275 and 400 GHz at VDS = 0.5 V, which is the largest combined ft and fmax, as well as the largest fmax reported for all III-V MOSFETs

Doping Profiles in Ultrathin Vertical VLS-Grown InAs Nanowire MOSFETs with High Performance.

Thin vertical nanowires based on III-V compound semiconductors are viable candidates as channel material in metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) due to attractive carrier transport properties. However, for improved performance in terms of current density as well as contact resistance, adequate characterization techniques for resolving doping distribution within thin vertical nanowires are required. We present a novel method of axially probing the doping profile by systematically changing the gate position, at a constant gate length L g of 50 nm and a channel diameter of 12 nm, along a vertical nanowire MOSFET and utilizing the variations in threshold voltage V T shift (∼100 mV). The method is further validated using the well-established technique of electron holography to verify the presence of the doping profile. Combined, device and material characterizations allow us to in-depth study the origin of the threshold voltage variability typically present for metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD)-grown III-V nanowire devices

RF and DC Analysis of Stressed InGaAs MOSFETs

A complete reliability study of the DC and RF characteristics for InGaAs nMOSFETs with aluminium oxide/ hafnium oxide dielectric is presented. The main stress variation at high frequencies is related to a threshold voltage shift, whereas no decrease is found in the maximum of the cut-off frequency and RF-transconductance. Constant gate stress leads to a charge build up causing a threshold voltage shift. Furthermore, electron trapping at the drain side degrades the performance after hot carrier stress. The maximum DC-transconductance is reduced following constant gate bias stress, by an increase in charge trapping at border defects. These border defects at the channel/high-k interface are filled by cold carrier trapping when the transistor is turned on, whereas they do not respond at high frequencies

InAs Nanowire Devices and Circuits

Since the introduction of the transistor and the integrated circuit, the semiconductor industry has developed at a remarkable pace. By continuously fabricating smaller and faster transistors, it has been possible to maintain an exponential increase in performance, a phenomenon famously described by Moore’s Law. Today, billions of transistors are integrated on a single chip and the size of a transistor is on the scale of tens of nanometres. Until recently, the improvements in performance and integration density have been mostly driven by scaling down the transistor size. However, as the length scale is rapidly approaching that of only a few atoms, this scaling paradigm may not continue forever. Instead, the research community, as well as the industry, is investigating alternative structures and materials in order to further increase the performance. One emerging technology for use in future electronic circuits is transistors based on nanowires. The nanowire transistor structure investigated in this work combines a number of key technologies to achieve a higher performance than traditional Si-based transistors. Epitaxially grown nanowires are naturally oriented in the vertical direction, which means that the devices may be fabricated from the bottom and up. This three-dimensional structure allows a higher integration density and enables the gate to completely surround the channel in a gate-all-around configuration. Combined with a high-k dielectric, this results in an excellent electrostatic gate control. Furthermore, nanowires have the unique ability to combine semiconductor materials with significantly different lattice constants. By introducing InAs as a channel material, a much higher electron mobility than for Si is achieved. In this work, simulations of nanowire-based devices are performed and the ultimate performance is predicted. A nanowire transistor architecture with a realistic footprint is proposed and a roadmap is established for the scaling of the device structure, based on a set of technology nodes. Benchmarking is performed against competing technologies, both from a device and circuit perspective. The physical properties of nanowire transistors, and the corresponding capacitor structure, are investigated by band-structure simulations. Based on these simulations, a ballistic transport model is used to derive the intrinsic transistor characteristics. This is combined with an extensive evaluation and optimization of the parasitic elements in the transistor structure for each technology node. It is demonstrated that an optimized nanowire transistor has the potential to operate at terahertz frequencies, while maintaining a low power consumption. A high quality factor and extremely high integration density is predicted for the nanowire capacitor structure. It is concluded that InAs nanowire devices show great potential for use in future electronic circuits, both in digital and analogue applications

Radio Frequency InGaAs MOSFETs

III-V-based Indium gallium arsenide is a promising channel material for high-frequency applications due to its superior electron mobility property. In this thesis, InGaAs/InP heterostructure radio frequency MOSFETs are designed, fabricated, and characterized. Various spacer technologies, from high dielectric spacers to air spacers, are implemented to reduce parasitic capacitances, and fT/fmax are evaluated. Three types of RF MOSFETs with different spacer technologies are fabricated in this work.InP ∧-ridge spacers are integrated on InGaAs Nanowire MOSFET in an attempt to decrease parasitic capacitances; however, due to a high-dielectric constant of the spacers and smaller transistors transconductance, the fT/fmax are limited to 75/100 GHz. InGaAs quantum well MOSFETs with a sacrificial amorphous silicon spacer are fabricated, and they have capacitances of a similar magnitude to other existing high-performing RF InGaAs FETs. An 80 nm InGaAs MOSFET has fT/fmax = 243/147 GHz is demonstrated, and further optimization of the channel and layout would improve the performance. Next, InGaAs MOSFETs with nitride spacer are fabricated in a top-down approach, where the heterostructure is designed to reduce contact resistance and thus improve transconductance. In the first attempt, from the electrical characterization, it is concluded that the ON resistance of these MOSFETs is comparable to state-of-the-art HEMTs. Complete non-quasi-static small-signal modeling is performed on these transistors, and the discrepancy in the magnitude of fmax is discussed. InGaAs/InP 3D-nanosheet/nanowire FETs' high-frequency performance is studied by combining intrinsic analytical and extrinsic numerical models to estimate fT/fmax. 3D vertical stacking results in smaller parasitic capacitances due to electric field perturbance because of screening.An 8-band k⋅p model is implemented to calculate the electronic parameters of strained InxGa1-xAs/InP heterostructure-based quantum wells and nanowires. Bandgap, conduction band energy levels, and their effective masses and non-parabolicity factors are studied for various indium compositions and channel dimensions. These calculated parameters are used to model the long channel quantum well InGaAs MOSFET at cryogenic temperatures, and the importance of band tails limiting the subthreshold slope is discussed

Vertical Heterostructure III-V MOSFETs for CMOS, RF and Memory Applications

This thesis focuses mainly on the co-integration of vertical nanowiren-type InAs and p-type GaSb MOSFETs on Si (Paper I & II), whereMOVPE grown vertical InAs-GaSb heterostructure nanowires areused for realizing monolithically integrated and co-processed all-III-V CMOS.Utilizing a bottom-up approach based on MOVPE grown nanowires enablesdesign flexibilities, such as in-situ doping and heterostructure formation,which serves to reduce the amount of mask steps during fabrication. By refiningthe fabrication techniques, using a self-aligned gate-last process, scaled10-20 nm diameters are achieved for balanced drive currents at Ion ∼ 100μA/μm, considering Ioff at 100 nA/μm (VDD = 0.5 V). This is enabledby greatly improved p-type MOSFET performance reaching a maximumtransconductance of 260 μA/μm at VDS = 0.5 V. Lowered power dissipationfor CMOS circuits requires good threshold voltage VT matching of the n- andp-type device, which is also demonstrated for basic inverter circuits. Thevarious effects contributing to VT-shifts are also studied in detail focusing onthe InAs channel devices (with highest transconductance of 2.6 mA/μm), byusing Electron Holography and a novel gate position variation method (PaperV).The advancements in all-III-V CMOS integration spawned individual studiesinto the strengths of the n- and p-type III-V devices, respectively. Traditionallymaterials such as InAs and InGaAs provide excellent electrontransport properties, therefore they are frequently used in devices for highfrequency RF applications. In contrast, the III-V p-type alternatives have beenlacking performance mostly due to the difficult oxidation properties of Sb-based materials. Therefore, a study of the GaSb properties, in a MOSFETchannel, was designed and enabled by new manufacturing techniques, whichallowed gate-length scaling from 40 to 140 nm for p-type Sb-based MOSFETs(Paper III). The new fabrication method allowed for integration of deviceswith symmetrical contacts as compared to previous work which relied on atunnel-contact at the source-side. By modelling based on measured data fieldeffecthole mobility of 70 cm2/Vs was calculated, well in line with previouslyreported studies on GaSb nanowires. The oxidation properties of the GaSbgate-stack was further characterized by XPS, where high intensities of xraysare achieved using a synchrotron source allowed for characterization ofnanowires (Paper VI). Here, in-situ H2-plasma treatment, in parallel with XPSmeasurements, enabled a study of the time-dependence during full removalof GaSb native oxides.The last focus of the thesis was building on the existing strengths of verticalheterostructure III-V n-type (InAs-InGaAs graded channel) devices. Typically,these devices demonstrate high-current densities (gm >3 mS/μm) and excellentmodulation properties (off-state current down to 1 nA/μm). However,minimizing the parasitic capacitances, due to various overlaps originatingfrom a low access-resistance design, has proven difficult. Therefore, newmethods for spacers in both the vertical and planar directions was developedand studied in detail. The new fabrication methods including sidewall spacersachieved gate-drain capacitance CGD levels close to 0.2 fF/μm, which isthe established limit by optimized high-speed devices. The vertical spacertechnology, using SiO2 on the nanowire sidewalls, is further improved inthis thesis which enables new co-integration schemes for memory arrays.Namely, the refined sidewall spacer method is used to realize selective recessetching of the channel and reduced capacitance for large array memoryselector devices (InAs channel) vertically integrated with Resistive RandomAccess Memory (RRAM) memristors. (Paper IV) The fabricated 1-transistor-1-memristor (1T1R) demonstrator cell shows excellent endurance and retentionfor the RRAM by maintaining constant ratio of the high and low resistive state(HRS/LRS) after 106 switching cycles