Giorgio Baccarani

Transport properties of polycrystalline silicon films

The transport properties of polycrystalline silicon films are examined and interpreted in terms of a modified grain‐boundary trapping model. The theory has been developed on the assumption of both a δ‐shaped and a uniform energy distribution of interface states. A comparison with experiments indicates that the interface states are nearly monovalent and peaked at midgap. Their density is 3.8×1012 cm−2, in accordance with carrier‐lifetime measurements performed on CVD films.

A compact double-gate MOSFET model comprising quantum-mechanical and nonstatic effects

In this work, we investigate the electrical properties of the Double-Gate MOSFET (DG-MOSFET), which turn out to be very promising for device miniaturization below 0.1 /spl mu/m. A compact model which accounts for charge quantization within the channel, Fermi statistics, and nonstatic effects in the transport model is worked out. The main results of this investigation are: (1) the ideality factor in subthreshold is equal to unity, i.e., the slope of the turn-on characteristic is 60 mV/decade at room temperature; (2) the drain-induced barrier lowering is minimized by the shielding effect of the double gate, which allows us to reduce the channel length below 30 nm; and (3) the device transconductance per unit width is maximized by the combination of the double gate and by a strong velocity overshoot which occurs in response to the sudden variation of the electric field at the source end of the channel, and which can be further strengthened near the drain in view of the short device length. As a result, a sustained electron velocity of nearly twice the saturation velocity is achievable. The above results prove that the potential performance advantages of the double-gate device architecture may be worth the development effort.

A new discretization strategy of the semiconductor equations comprising momentum and energy balance

A discretization scheme is applied to the hydrodynamic model for semiconductor devices that generalizes the Scharfetter-Gummel method to both the momentum-conservation and the energy-conservation equations. The major advantages of the scheme are: (1) the discretization is carried out without neglecting any terms, thus providing a satisfactory description of such effects as velocity overshoot and carrier heating; and (2) the resulting equations lend themselves to a self-consistent solution procedure similar to those currently used to solve the simpler drift-diffusion equations. Two-dimensional steady-state simulations of an n-channel MOSFET and of an n-p-n BJT (bipolar junction transistor) have been carried out by means of an improved version of the program HFIELDS. Carrier-temperature plots have been obtained with a reasonable computational effort, demonstrating the efficiency of this technique. The results have been compared with those obtained with the standard drift-diffusion model and significant differences in the electron concentration have been found, especially at the drain end of the MOSFET channel. >

Theory of the Junctionless Nanowire FET

In this paper, we model the electrical properties of the junctionless (JL) nanowire field-effect transistor (FET), which has been recently proposed as a possible alternative to the junction-based FET. The analytical model worked out here assumes a cylindrical geometry and is meant to provide a physical understanding of the device behavior. Most notably, it aims to clarify the motivation for its nearly ideal subthreshold slope and its excellent on-state current while being a depletion device with lower electron mobility due to impurity scattering. At the same time, the model clarifies a constraint binding the allowable value of the doping density per unit length and its impact on the overall device performance. The device variability and the parasitic source/drain resistances are identified as the most important limitations of the JL nanowire field-effect transistor.

Two-dimensional MOSFET simulation by means of a multidimensional spherical harmonics expansion of the Boltzmann transport equation☆

A spherical harmonics expansion method of the Boltzmann Transport Equation (BTE) is applied to investigate the carrier energy spectrum of a two-dimensional MOSFET up to 3 eV. By this method hot-electron population is obtained all over the device cross-section without the problems of statistical noise and large computational requirements typical of Monte Carlo methods.

Transconductance degradation in thin-Oxide MOSFET's

In this work we investigate the transconductance degradation effect which occurs in thin-oxide FETs due to the finite inversion-layer capacitance and to the decrease of the electron mobility as the electric field increases. Experimental capacitance and charge measurements are performed at room and at liquid-nitrogen temperature on 10-nm oxide FETs, and the data are compared with a classical and a quantum-mechanical model extended to take into account the non-uniform doping profile in the silicon substrate. Accurate mobility determinations are performed accounting for the nonuniform distribution of the mobile charge along the channel, and a mobility expression against the average normal field is incorporated in a generalized Pao-Sah double-integral formula for the FET drain current. Design trade-offs for submicrometer FETs are finally discussed.

Electron and hole mobility in silicon at large operating temperatures. I. Bulk mobility

In this paper, an experimental investigation on high-temperature carrier mobility in bulk silicon is carried out with the aim of improving our qualitative and quantitative understanding of carrier transport under ESD events. Circular van der Pauw patterns, suitable for resistivity and Hall measurements, were designed and manufactured using both the n and p layers made available by the BCD-3 smart-power technology. The previous measurements were carried out using a special measurement setup that allows operating temperatures in excess of 400/spl deg/C to be reached within the polar expansions of a commercial magnet. A novel extraction methodology that allows for the determination of the Hall factor and drift mobility against impurity concentration and lattice temperature has been developed. Also, a compact mobility model suitable for implementation in device simulators is worked out and implemented in the DESSIS/spl copy/ code. Comparisons with the mobility models by G. Masetti et al. (1983) and D.B.M. Klaassen (1992) are shown in the temperature range between 25 and 400/spl deg/C.

Investigation of the Transport Properties of Silicon Nanowires Using Deterministic and Monte Carlo Approaches to the Solution of the Boltzmann Transport Equation

We investigate the transport properties of silicon- nanowire FETs by using two different approaches to the solution of the Boltzmann equation for the quasi-1-D electron gas, namely, the Monte Carlo method and a deterministic numerical solver. In both cases, we first solve the coupled Schrodinger-Poisson equations to extract the profiles of the 1-D subbands along the channel; next, the coupled multisubband Boltzmann equations are tackled with the two different procedures. A very good agreement is achieved between the two approaches to the transport problem in terms of mobility, drain-current, and internal physical quantities, such as carrier-distribution functions and average velocities. Some peculiar features of the low-field mobility as a function of the wire diameter and gate bias are discussed and justified based on the subband energy and wave-function behavior within the cylindrical geometry of the nanowire, as well as the heavy degeneracy of the electron gas at large gate biases.

Multidimensional spherical harmonics expansion of Boltzmann equation for transport in semiconductors

Abstract A spherical harmonics expansion method of the Boltzmann Transport Equation (BTE) in the three-dimensional space is proposed. The method is quite general in terms of scattering matrix and band structure. We show a numerical application to a two-dimensional p-n junction.

Band-Structure Effects in Ultrascaled Silicon Nanowires

In this paper, we investigate band-structure effects on the transport properties of ultrascaled silicon nanowire FETs operating under quantum-ballistic conditions. More specifically, we expand the dispersion relationship epsiv(kappa) in a power series up to the third order in kappa2 and generate the corresponding higher order operator to be used within the single-electron Hamiltonian for the solution of the Schrodinger equation. We work out a hierarchy of nonparabolic models accounting for the following: 1) the shift of the subband edges and the change in the transport effective masses; 2) the higher order Hamiltonian operator; and 3) the splitting of the fourfold unprimed subbands in nanometer-size FETs. We then compute the device turn-on characteristics, the threshold shift versus diameter, and the subthreshold slope (SS) versus gate length. By compensating for the different threshold voltages, i.e., by reducing the turn- on characteristics to the same leakage current at zero gate bias, it turns out that the current discrepancies between the most general model and the bulk-parabolic model are contained within 20%. Finally, it turns out that the nonparabolic band structure gives an improved SS at the lowest gate lengths due to a reduced source-drain tunneling, reaching up to 30% enhancement.