Reliability Investigations of MOSFETs using RF Small Signal Characterization

Modern technology needs and advancements have introduced various new concepts such as Internet-of-Things, electric automotive, and Artificial intelligence. This implies an increased activity in the electronics domain of analog and high frequency. Silicon devices have emerged as a cost-effective solution for such diverse applications. As these silicon devices are pushed towards higher performance, there is a continuous need to improve fabrication, power efficiency, variability, and reliability. Often, a direct trade-off of higher performance is observed in the reliability of semiconductor devices. The acceleration-based methodologies used for reliability assessment are the adequate time-saving solution for the lifetime's extrapolation but come with uncertainty in accuracy. Thus, the efforts to improve the accuracy of reliability characterization methodologies run in parallel. This study highlights two goals that can be achieved by incorporating high-frequency characterization into the reliability characteristics. The first one is assessing high-frequency performance throughout the device's lifetime to facilitate an accurate description of device/circuit functionality for high-frequency applications. Secondly, to explore the potential of high-frequency characterization as the means of scanning reliability effects within devices. S-parameters served as the high-frequency device's response and mapped onto a small-signal model to analyze different components of a fully depleted silicon-on-insulator MOSFET. The studied devices are subjected to two important DC stress patterns, i.e., Bias temperature instability stress and hot carrier stress. The hot carrier stress, which inherently suffers from the self-heating effect, resulted in the transistor's geometry-dependent magnitudes of hot carrier degradation. It is shown that the incorporation of the thermal resistance model is mandatory for the investigation of hot carrier degradation. The property of direct translation of small-signal parameter degradation to DC parameter degradation is used to develop a new S-parameter based bias temperature instability characterization methodology. The changes in gate-related small-signal capacitances after hot carrier stress reveals a distinct signature due to local change of flat-band voltage. The measured effects of gate-related small-signal capacitances post-stress are validated through transient physics-based simulations in Sentaurus TCAD.:Abstract Symbols Acronyms 1 Introduction 2 Fundamentals 2.1 MOSFETs Scaling Trends and Challenges 2.1.1 Silicon on Insulator Technology 2.1.2 FDSOI Technology 2.2 Reliability of Semiconductor Devices 2.3 RF Reliability 2.4 MOSFET Degradation Mechanisms 2.4.1 Hot Carrier Degradation 2.4.2 Bias Temperature Instability 2.5 Self-heating 3 RF Characterization of fully-depleted Silicon on Insulator devices 3.1 Scattering Parameters 3.2 S-parameters Measurement Flow 3.2.1 Calibration 3.2.2 De-embedding 3.3 Small-Signal Model 3.3.1 Model Parameters Extraction 3.3.2 Transistor Figures of Merit 3.4 Characterization Results 4 Self-heating assessment in Multi-finger Devices 4.1 Self-heating Characterization Methodology 4.1.1 Output Conductance Frequency dependence 4.1.2 Temperature dependence of Drain Current 4.2 Thermal Resistance Behavior 4.2.1 Thermal Resistance Scaling with number of fingers 4.2.2 Thermal Resistance Scaling with finger spacing 4.2.3 Thermal Resistance Scaling with GateWidth 4.2.4 Thermal Resistance Scaling with Gate length 4.3 Thermal Resistance Model 4.4 Design for Thermal Resistance Optimization 5 Bias Temperature Instability Investigation 5.1 Impact of Bias Temperature Instability stress on Device Metrics 5.1.1 Experimental Details 5.1.2 DC Parameters Drift 5.1.3 RF Small-Signal Parameters Drift 5.2 S-parameter based on-the-fly Bias Temperature Instability Characterization Method 5.2.1 Measurement Methodology 5.2.2 Results and Discussion 6 Investigation of Hot-carrier Degradation 6.1 Impact of Hot-carrier stress on Device performance 6.1.1 DC Metrics Degradation 6.1.2 Impact on small-signal Parameters 6.2 Implications of Self-heating on Hot-carrier Degradation in n-MOSFETs 6.2.1 Inclusion of Thermal resistance in Hot-carrier Degradation modeling 6.2.2 Convolution of Bias Temperature Instability component in Hot-carrier Degradation 6.2.3 Effect of Source and Drain Placement in Multi-finger Layout 6.3 Vth turn-around effect in p-MOSFET 7 Deconvolution of Hot-carrier Degradation and Bias Temperature Instability using Scattering parameters 7.1 Small-Signal Parameter Signatures for Hot-carrier Degradation and Bias Temperature Instability 7.2 TCAD Dynamic Simulation of Defects 7.2.1 Fixed Charges 7.2.2 Interface Traps near Gate 7.2.3 Interface Traps near Spacer Region 7.2.4 Combination of Traps 7.2.5 Drain Series Resistance effect 7.2.6 DVth Correction 7.3 Empirical Modeling based deconvolution of Hot-carrier Degradation 8 Conclusion and Recommendations 8.1 General Conclusions 8.2 Recommendations for Future Work A Directly measured S-parameters and extracted Y-parameters B Device Dimensions for Thermal Resistance Modeling C Frequency response of hot-carrier degradation (HCD) D Localization Effect of Interface Traps Bibliograph

Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2007, nr 2

kwartalni

Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2000, nr 3,4

kwartalni

Strain-Engineered MOSFETs

This book brings together new developments in the area of strain-engineered MOSFETs using high-mibility substrates such as SIGe, strained-Si, germanium-on-insulator and III-V semiconductors into a single text which will cover the materials aspects, principles, and design of advanced devices, their fabrication and applications. The book presents a full TCAD methodology for strain-engineering in Si CMOS technology involving data flow from process simulation to systematic process variability simulation and generation of SPICE process compact models for manufacturing for yield optimization

DESIGN, COMPACT MODELING AND CHARACTERIZATION OF NANOSCALE DEVICES

Electronic device modeling is a crucial step in the advancement of modern nanotechnology and is gaining more and more interest. Nanoscale complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) transistors, being the backbone of the electronic industry, are pushed to below 10 nm dimensions using novel manufacturing techniques including extreme lithography. As their dimensions are pushed into such unprecedented limits, their behavior is still captured using models that are decades old. Among many other proposed nanoscale devices, silicon vacuum electron devices are regaining attention due to their presumed advantages in operating at very high power, high speed and under harsh environment, where CMOS cannot compete. Another type of devices that have the potential to complement CMOS transistors are nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS), with potential applications in filters, stable frequency sources, non-volatile memories and reconfigurable and neuromorphic electronics

Virtual Fabrication of Recessed-Source/Drain SOI MOSFETs

The main objective of using process simulator in the IC fabrication technologies is to obtain the fast and accurate simulation of all critical fabrication steps used in the semiconductor devices. ATHENA process simulator provides an appropriate and suitable platform for simulating processes such as oxidation, lithography, physical etching and deposition, diffusion, ion implantation which are used in the semiconductor industry. Scaling down of MOSFET device in IC Technology offers excellent features. However, leakage current and short channel effects (SCEs) are to be considered when MOSFETs are scaled to the deep submicron region. A Re-S/D SOI MOSFET with 30nm channel length, and 10nm channel thickness, is virtually fabricated using ATHENA process simulator with reduced short channel effects (SCEs) and low source/drain series resistance. The processing steps, which are required to obtain the structure of the Re-S/D SOI MOSFET, are explained in detail. The electrical characteristics such as drain current (Ids) versus drain to source voltage (VDS) is obtained for different values of VGS and Re-S/D thickness (trsd). The influence of gate oxide thickness, recessed source/drain thickness on subthreshold swing is observed and analyzed. Further, performance of the device is improved by a gate engineering technique named dual metal gate technology. This technique is incorporated in the virtual fabrication of single metal gate recessed source/drain SOI MOSFET. The effect of channel length ratio on threshold voltage (Vth), surface potential, subthreshold current (Isub) and drain current (Ids) is observed. Also the impact of recessed source/drain thickness (trsd) on drain current (Ids) is evaluated

Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2001, nr 1

kwartalni

Electrical characterization and modeling of low dimensional nanostructure FET

At the beginning of this thesis, basic and advanced device fabrication process which I haveexperienced during study such as top-down and bottom-up approach for the nanoscale devicefabrication technique have been described. Especially, lithography technology has beenfocused because it is base of the modern device fabrication. For the advanced device structure,etching technique has been investigated in detail.The characterization of FET has been introduced. For the practical consideration in theadvanced FET, several parameter extraction techniques have been introduced such as Yfunction,split C-V etc.FinFET is one of promising alternatives against conventional planar devices. Problem ofFinFET is surface roughness. During the fabrication, the etching process induces surfaceroughness on the sidewall surfaces. Surface roughness of channel decreases the effectivemobility by surface roughness scattering. With the low temperature measurement andmobility analysis, drain current through sidewall and top surface was separated. From theseparated currents, effective mobilities were extracted in each temperature conditions. Astemperature lowering, mobility behaviors from the transport on each surface have differenttemperature dependence. Especially, in n-type FinFET, the sidewall mobility has strongerdegradation in high gate electric field compare to top surface. Quantification of surfaceroughness was also compared between sidewall and top surface. Low temperaturemeasurement is nondestructive characterization method. Therefore this study can be a propersurface roughness measurement technique for the performance optimization of FinFET.As another quasi-1 D nanowire structure device, 3D stacked SiGe nanowire has beenintroduced. Important of strain engineering has been known for the effective mobility booster.The limitation of dopant diffusion by strain has been shown. Without strain, SiGe nanowireFET showed huge short channel effect. Subthreshold current was bigger than strained SiGechannel. Temperature dependent mobility behavior in short channel unstrained device wascompletely different from the other cases. Impurity scattering was dominant in short channelunstrained SiGe nanowire FET. Thus, it could be concluded that the strain engineering is notnecessary only for the mobility booster but also short channel effect immunity.Junctionless FET is very recently developed device compare to the others. Like as JFET,junctionless FET has volume conduction. Thus, it is less affected by interface states.Junctionless FET also has good short channel effect immunity because off-state ofjunctionless FET is dominated pinch-off of channel depletion. For this, junctionless FETshould have thin body thickness. Therefore, multi gate nanowire structure is proper to makejunctionless FET.Because of the surface area to volume ratio, quasi-1D nanowire structure is good for thesensor application. Nanowire structure has been investigated as a sensor. Using numericalsimulation, generation-recombination noise property was considered in nanowire sensor.Even though the surface area to volume ration is enhanced in the nanowire channel, devicehas sensing limitation by noise. The generation-recombination noise depended on the channelgeometry. As a design tool of nanowire sensor, noise simulation should be carried out toescape from the noise limitation in advance.The basic principles of device simulation have been discussed. Finite difference method andMonte Carlo simulation technique have been introduced for the comprehension of devicesimulation. Practical device simulation data have been shown for examples such as FinFET,strongly disordered 1D channel, OLED and E-paper.At the beginning of this thesis, basic and advanced device fabrication process which I haveexperienced during study such as top-down and bottom-up approach for the nanoscale devicefabrication technique have been described. Especially, lithography technology has beenfocused because it is base of the modern device fabrication. For the advanced device structure,etching technique has been investigated in detail.The characterization of FET has been introduced. For the practical consideration in theadvanced FET, several parameter extraction techniques have been introduced such as Yfunction,split C-V etc.FinFET is one of promising alternatives against conventional planar devices. Problem ofFinFET is surface roughness. During the fabrication, the etching process induces surfaceroughness on the sidewall surfaces. Surface roughness of channel decreases the effectivemobility by surface roughness scattering. With the low temperature measurement andmobility analysis, drain current through sidewall and top surface was separated. From theseparated currents, effective mobilities were extracted in each temperature conditions. Astemperature lowering, mobility behaviors from the transport on each surface have differenttemperature dependence. Especially, in n-type FinFET, the sidewall mobility has strongerdegradation in high gate electric field compare to top surface. Quantification of surfaceroughness was also compared between sidewall and top surface. Low temperaturemeasurement is nondestructive characterization method. Therefore this study can be a propersurface roughness measurement technique for the performance optimization of FinFET.As another quasi-1 D nanowire structure device, 3D stacked SiGe nanowire has beenintroduced. Important of strain engineering has been known for the effective mobility booster.The limitation of dopant diffusion by strain has been shown. Without strain, SiGe nanowireFET showed huge short channel effect. Subthreshold current was bigger than strained SiGechannel. Temperature dependent mobility behavior in short channel unstrained device wascompletely different from the other cases. Impurity scattering was dominant in short channelunstrained SiGe nanowire FET. Thus, it could be concluded that the strain engineering is notnecessary only for the mobility booster but also short channel effect immunity.Junctionless FET is very recently developed device compare to the others. Like as JFET,junctionless FET has volume conduction. Thus, it is less affected by interface states.Junctionless FET also has good short channel effect immunity because off-state ofjunctionless FET is dominated pinch-off of channel depletion. For this, junctionless FETshould have thin body thickness. Therefore, multi gate nanowire structure is proper to makejunctionless FET.Because of the surface area to volume ratio, quasi-1D nanowire structure is good for thesensor application. Nanowire structure has been investigated as a sensor. Using numericalsimulation, generation-recombination noise property was considered in nanowire sensor.Even though the surface area to volume ration is enhanced in the nanowire channel, devicehas sensing limitation by noise. The generation-recombination noise depended on the channelgeometry. As a design tool of nanowire sensor, noise simulation should be carried out toescape from the noise limitation in advance.The basic principles of device simulation have been discussed. Finite difference method andMonte Carlo simulation technique have been introduced for the comprehension of devicesimulation. Practical device simulation data have been shown for examples such as FinFET,strongly disordered 1D channel, OLED and E-paper.SAVOIE-SCD - Bib.électronique (730659901) / SudocGRENOBLE1/INP-Bib.électronique (384210012) / SudocGRENOBLE2/3-Bib.électronique (384219901) / SudocSudocFranceF