Enhancing Frequency Performance of Underlap Tunnel Field-Effect Transistor For Analog/RF Applications
Enhancing Frequency Performance of Underlap Tunnel Field-Effect Transistor For Analog/RF Applications
Enhancing Frequency Performance of Underlap Tunnel Field-Effect Transistor For Analog/RF Applications
ARTICLE
In this paper, a silicon n-channel double gate tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) with source/drain underlap
is demonstrated. As spacer dielectric material is an important parameter to decide the device analog/RF
performance, we use dual- spacer material in the underlap region of TFET to enhance the analog/RF perfor-
mance of the device. It is observed that air as an outer spacer material further enhances the performance of
the device. A thorough analysis, with the help of comprehensive device simulation, on the device analog/RF
performance with Air as an outer spacer material in dual- spacer underlap TFET is reported in this paper.
It is examined that the intrinsic gain of dual-Air spacer dielectric is almost unaltered (≈71 dB); whereas
frequencies like cut-off frequency (fT ) and maximum oscillation frequency (fMAX ) are enhanced by 1.5 times
and 1.25 times respectively as compared to conventional dual- spacer dielectric material. This results in a
higher percentage improvement in the gain-frequency product (GFP), transconductance frequency product
(TFP) and gain transconductance frequency product (GTFP) of the device.
Keywords: TFET, Underlap, Tunneling Length, Dual-.
be achieved by using the drain underlap structure [11]. current. In tunnel-FET, the source is made up of p-type
In underlap architecture of TFET, the RF performance in and drain is of n-type. To reduce the ambipolarity of
terms of cut-off frequency (fT and maximum oscillation the tunnel FET, the doping concentration of the source
frequency (fMAX of device increases. With the increase and drain should be asymmetric. The p-type source is
in the underlap length of the device, fMAX of the device doped with 1 × 1020 cm−3 , the intrinsic channel is doped
increases [11]. Dual- spacer underlap device is a better with 1 × 1016 cm−3 and the n-type drain is doped with
alternative for enhancing digital performance, improving 5 × 1018 cm−3 [15]. The thickness of the active silicon
SCEs, and controlling direct source to drain tunneling [12]. layer where the channel is formed (tSi is kept as 8 nm.
By shifting the lateral electric field at the gate edge toward SiO2 is used as gate dielectric throughout the simula-
the drain, the analog performance of dual- spacer based tion procedure. The polysilicon gate has several disadvan-
device is enhanced [13]. In dual- spacer, the inner gate tages in nanoscale devices such as gate depletion, high
side-wall spacer is high- dielectric and the outer spacer gate resistance and sheet resistance, and penetration of
is a low- dielectric. Reducing the outer spacer dielectric dopant ions from doped poly-silicon gate [16]. To elim-
constant of the dual- spacer, the analog performance of inate these adverse effects and enhance the performance
the device can be further enhanced. In the Section 1 of of gate, an aluminum metal gate with work-function
this paper, therefore, we have focused on the analog per- of 4.3 eV is used. Cut-off frequency (fT is deter-
formance of dual- spacer underlap double gate silicon mined from current gain (h21 through an extrapolation
tunnel-FET with air as an outer spacer dielectric mate- of 20 dB/decade slope, whereas maximum oscillation fre-
rial. The device structure and methodology used for sim- quency (fMAX , indicating the maximum available power
ulation are discussed in Section 2 of the paper, Followed gain, is derived from Mason’s unilateral gain through an
by the device physics and performance study aspects in estimation of 20 dB/decade slope [17]. A dual-gate TFET
Section 3. Section 4 describes the result and analysis and with Source/Drain underlap is simulated using Sentaurus
finally, Section 5 concludes the paper. TCAD mixed mode device simulator with different under-
lap lengths [18]. The band-to-band tunneling model with a
nonlocal path is used in the simulation setup, to imitate the
2. DEVICE STRUCTURE AND
tunneling phenomena [19]. The Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin
SIMULATION SETUP
(WKB) approximation model along with two side disper-
The schematic cross-sectional view of TFET with symmet-
sion model is responsible to capture tunneling across all
rical Source/Drain underlap is shown in Figure 1. Encased
possible junctions and interfaces [19]. In this article, we
Air-gap spacer is formed by the selective deposition of
have used effective tunneling mass of electrons (me =
carbon on the gate stack side-wall, followed by the SiN
0.19 and that of holes (mh = 0.16 [20]. Furthermore,
deposition and reactive ion etching (RIE), which results
Old Slotboom bandgap narrowing mobility model, band to
in encapsulation of carbon region by SiN. Finally, oxy-
band Auger recombination model and Shockley-Read-Hall
gen plasma is used to remove the deposited carbon and
recombination/generation model are also included in the
forming air spacer encased between SiN and gate side-
simulation setup [21–23]. The various analog/RF figure-
wall [14]. The fixed gate length of 20 nm is used through-
of-merit (FOM) of all the considered devices are extracted
out the analysis. The Source/Drain underlap length (LU
at 1 A/m drain current targeting high gain subthreshold
is set to 10 nm. The dual- spacer is optimized for 7 nm
to weak inversion region of operation.
high- inner material and 3 nm of low- outer material.
In conventional dual- structure, HfO2 is considered as
inner high- material, whereas SiO2 is considered as outer 3. EFFECT OF TUNNELING PATH
low- material. Doping has been optimized in order to Tunneling path in tunnel-FET is the physical path between
maximize the on-state current and minimize the off-state two equi-energy points; one on the conduction band and
another on the valence band, where band-to-band tunnel- As the GBT BT increases, Itun of the device increases, which
ing (BTBT) is probably afforded. The tunneling path is an in-turn enhances the drain current of the device. Subse-
important factor for calculating the tunneling current. The quently, the analog performance of the device in terms of
lateral electric field is dominated over gate electric field transconductance (gm , intrinsic voltage gain (AV and unit
in tunneling region. Therefore, the main contributor to the gain cut-off frequency (fT are enhanced.
average electric field (Eavg in the tunneling region is the
laeral electric field. The Eavg anticipates the tunneling path
which is defined as [24] 4. EFFECT OF DUAL- SPACER IN
UNDERLAP TFET
Eavg = Eg /qlpath (1) In tunnel-FET, spacer fringing field engineering can boost-
where lpath and q indicate the tunneling path and charge up the performance of the device. The coupling of the
of electron respectively. The band energy diagram of the fringing field to the source-channel interface can be en-
tunnel-FET and tunneling paths are shown in Figure 2. l1 is hanced by using a dual- spacer with high- dielectric as
the shortest tunneling path and l2 is the longest tunneling an inner spacer and low- dielectric as an outer spacer in
path. The difference between l1 and l2 is the effective tun- underlap structure [26]. With the use of a dual- spacer
neling path (lpath ) of the tunnel FET. It is clearly seen from in the underlap region, the tunneling length of the device
Eq. (1) that with the reduction in lpath of the device, the
average electric field of the device increases. The band-to-
band generation rate (GBT BT ) of carriers is the function of
the electric field at the tunneling junction and is defined
as [18]
GBT BT = AEavg /E0 P exp−B/Eavg (2)
where E0 indicates the normalizing electric field (with a
value of 1 V/cm), P indicates the coefficient whose values
for direct tunneling and indirect or phonon-assisted tun-
neling are 2 and 2.5 respectively [19]. The model param-
eters A has value 4 × 1014 cm−3 s−1 and B has value 1.9 ×
107 V/cm [18]. We are considering indirect tunneling in
this paper. As in equation (2), the band-to-band generation
rate (GBT BT of the carrier increases with increase in Eavg .
By integrating the GBT BT over the effective tunneling vol-
ume, the tunneling current is calculated. The tunneling
current (Itun per unit width is given as [25]
Fig. 3. Tunneling length of TFET for different spacer dielectric
Itun = q GBT BT dy dx (3) material.
Fig. 2. Energy band diagram along the channel obtained at VGS and Fig. 4. Drain current of underlap DG-TFET for different spacer dielec-
VDS = 2 V. tric, plotted in logarithmic scale.
Fig. 5. Energy band diagram of underlap DG-TFET across the channel Fig. 7. Subthreshold Slope for different spacer dielectric material.
of device.
Fig. 6. Effect of asymmetric doping on the ambipolar behavior of the Fig. 8. Variation of gm and gds for various spacer dielectric, at
device. 1 A/m.
AV = gm /gds (4)
Fig. 9. Variation of cgd and cgg for various spacer dielectric, extracted fT = gm /2Cgg (5)
at 1 A/m.
Figure 10 elucidate that with the use of a dual- spacer
The gm decides the current driving capability of the device. in the underlap region, the AV and fT is improved.
Because of increase in the drain current (due to an increase
in tunneling current) the transconductance (gm of the
device increases. Subsequently, the output conductance
(gds of the device also enhanced with the use of a
dual- spacer in the underlap region. However, with the
use of Air as an outer low- spacer in the dual- struc-
ture, gds slightly deteriorates. This deterioration in gds
doesn’t pose any serious threat because of higher percent-
age improvement in gm . From analog perspective, high
transconductance is preferred for large gate transport effi-
ciency. The increase in transconductance will lead to the
improvement in electrostatic integrity (EI). It is exam-
ined that transconductance of device enhances with the use
of dual-Air dielectric in the spacer region instead of the
dual- or high- spacer dielectric.
In underlap devices, the parasitic outer and inner fringe
capacitance of the device depends upon the underlap
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