Effect of substrate biasing on Si/SiGe heterostructure MOSFETs for low-power circuit applications

Author

Li, Pei-Wen ; Liao, Wei-Ming ; Shih, Ching-Chieh ; Kuo, Tine-Shang ; Lai, Li-Shyue ; Tseng, Yang-Tai ; Tsai, Ming-J

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Nat. Central Univ., Chungli, Taiwan

Volume

24

Issue

7

fYear

2003

fDate

7/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

454

Lastpage

456

Abstract

We have investigated the effect of substrate biasing on the subthreshold characteristics and noise levels of Si/Si/sub 1-x/Ge/sub x/ (x=0,0.15,0.3) heterostructure MOSFETs. A detailed analysis of the dependence of threshold voltage, off-state current, and low-frequency noise level on the substrate-source (V/sub bs/) biasing showed that SiGe heterostructure MOSFETs offer a significant speed advantage, an extended subthreshold operation region, a reduced noise level, and reduced bulk potential sensitivity compared to Si bulk devices. These experimental results demonstrate that SiGe heterostructure MOSFETs render a promising extension to the CMOS technologies at the low-power limit of operation, eventually making the micropower implementation of radio frequency (RF) functions feasible.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; Ge-Si alloys; MOS integrated circuits; MOSFET; elemental semiconductors; integrated circuit noise; low-power electronics; semiconductor materials; silicon; Si-Si/sub 1-x/Ge/sub x/; Si/Si/sub 1-x/Ge/sub x/; bulk potential sensitivity; heterostructure MOSFETs; low-frequency noise level; low-power circuit applications; micropower implementation; off-state current; substrate biasing; subthreshold characteristics; threshold voltage; CMOS technology; Circuits; Degradation; Germanium silicon alloys; Low-frequency noise; MOSFETs; Noise level; Radio frequency; Silicon germanium; Threshold voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2003.814023

Filename

1217295