The evolution of silicon-on-insulator MOSFETs

This paper deals with evolution of silicon-on-insulator MOSFET. In 1964 partially depleted devices fabricated on silicon-on-sapphire substrates was developed and was successfully used in numerous military and civilian applications and still used to realize commercial HF circuits in fully depleted CMOS. The first fully depleted SOI MOSFET was established in early 1980 with superior transconductance, current drive and subthreshold swing. Double-gate SOI MOSFET was established in 1984 with resemblance of the XMOS structure and good short-channel characteristics. Later vertical-channel MOSFET, triangular-wire SOI MOSFET and Δ-channel MOSFET was established. Practical implementation of planar double-gate MOSFET was observed in 1990. The evolution of SOI MOSFET seems ineluctable as high drive with short-channel immunity becomes a problem and can no longer be solved by classical approach.