The impact of gate-induced drain leakage current on MOSFET scaling

Significant gate-induced drain leakage current can be detected in thin gate oxide MOSFETs at drain voltages much lower than the junction breakdown voltage. This current is found to be due to the band-to-band tunneling occurring in the deep-depletion layer in the gate-to-drain overlap region. In order to limit the leakage current to 0.1pA/µm, the oxide field in the gate-to-drain overlap region must be limited to 1.9MV/cm. This may set another constraint for the power supply voltage and/or oxide thickness in VLSI MOSFET scaling Device design considerations for minimizing the gate-induced drain leakage current are discussed.