Operational Amplifier Based Test Structure for Quantifying Transistor Threshold Voltage Variation

Author

Ji, Brian L. ; Pearson, Dale J. ; Lauer, Isaac ; Stellari, Franco ; Frank, David J. ; Chang, Leland ; Ketchen, Mark B.

Author_Institution

IBM T. J. Watson Res. Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA

Volume

22

Issue

1

fYear

2009

Firstpage

51

Lastpage

58

Abstract

A new test structure has been developed, which is comprised of MOSFET arrays and an on-chip operational amplifier feedback loop for measuring threshold voltage variation. The test structure also includes an on-chip clock generator and address decoders to scan through the arrays. It can be used in an inline test environment to provide rapid assessment of Vt variation for technology development and chip manufacturing. Hardware results in a 65-nm technology are presented. The significance of the bias dependence of Vt variation is discussed for SRAM product designs.

Keywords

MOSFET; SRAM chips; decoding; operational amplifiers; signal generators; MOSFET arrays; address decoders; on-chip clock generator; on-chip operational amplifier feedback loop; threshold voltage; Clocks; Decoding; Feedback loop; MOSFET circuits; Manufacturing; Operational amplifiers; Semiconductor device measurement; Testing; Threshold voltage; Voltage measurement; MOSFET threshold voltage variation; SRAM cell stability; operational amplifiers; semiconductor test structure;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Semiconductor Manufacturing, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0894-6507

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TSM.2008.2010729

Filename

4773475