Analog/RF Performance of Si Nanowire MOSFETs and the Impact of Process Variation

Author

Wang, Runsheng ; Zhuge, Jing ; Huang, Ru ; Tian, Yu ; Xiao, Han ; Zhang, Liangliang ; Li, Chen ; Zhang, Xing ; Wang, Yangyuan

Author_Institution

Inst. of Microelectron., Peking Univ., Beijing

Volume

54

Issue

6

fYear

2007

fDate

6/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1288

Lastpage

1294

Abstract

In this paper, the analog/RF performance of Si nanowire transistors (SNWTs) and the impact of process variation are investigated for the first time. Analog/RF figures of merit of SNWTs are studied, including transconductance efficiency g_m/I_d, intrinsic gain g_m/g_d, cutoff frequency f_t, and maximum oscillation frequency f_max. The results indicate that SNWTs exhibit superior intrinsic RF scaling capability and are suitable for low-power analog/RF applications. The impact of nanowire cross-sectional shape fluctuation that is caused by process variation is studied and found to be relatively severe, and the acceptable variation tolerance for RF integrated circuit design is given

Keywords

MOSFET; elemental semiconductors; nanowires; silicon; RF integrated circuit design; Si; Si nanowire MOSFET; analog/RF performance; intrinsic RF scaling capability; nanowire cross-sectional shape fluctuation; nanowire transistors; process variation; CMOS technology; Computational modeling; Cutoff frequency; Fluctuations; Integrated circuit synthesis; MOSFETs; Radio frequency; Shape; Transconductance; Voltage; Analog; Si nanowire transistor (SNWT); process variation; radio frequency (RF);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TED.2007.896598

Filename

4215203