A fast 3-D TCAD structure generation method for FinFET devices and circuits simulation

FINFET is necessary for CMOS technology scaling down to sub-28nm. 3D TCAD is not only necessary for single device simulation but also important for small scale circuit RC optimization. However, 3-D TCAD process simulation is very time consuming and is currently mainly applied on single device, which makes it not practical for the simulation of small circuit RC optimization in terms of layout and process. In this paper, we adopt an efficient 3-D TCAD simulation method for fast generation of small FinFET circuits. 3D full-structure FinFET inverter, as an example, is realized here to demonstrate the simulation flow. Id-Vg curves of P/NMOS in the inverter were extracted and verified by the results from single device simulation. The total simulation time is compared between the proposed method and brute force method to show the superior simulation efficiency.