Analog design challenges and trade-offs using emerging materials and devices

Analog device figures-of-merit change significantly with the introduction of advanced materials and devices such as high-k or Multiple-Gate FETs. Measurements show enhanced intrinsic gain and matching behavior for MuGFETs which help to reduce area and power consumption in analog circuits. However, high-k degrades matching, flicker noise and Vt stability. Measured device performance is used to simulate the impact of these trends on circuit design trade-offs. Migrating from SiON to HfO₂ dielectric approximately doubles area and power consumption to keep matching and noise performance constant. Transient Vt instabilities in the range of 10 mV can degrade the resolution of analog-to-digital converters by more than one bit. The use of non-binary ADCs is proposed to overcome these issues.