Sep 16, 2007

New compact modeling papers published in IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices

The September issue of IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices includes an Special Issue on Simulation and Modeling of Nanoelectronics Devices, where most papers are about numeriocal modeling and simulations.

Among the regular papers, there are many about compact modeling. It is certainly a very hot topic!

My former and excellent Ph D student Hamdy Abd El Hamid has published a great work presenting a 3D analytical model for the subthreshold swing in FinFETs. This work was done in collaboration with researchers from the SOI group at the Universite catholique de Louvain: Prof. Denis Flandre and Dr Valeria Kilchytska.

J. Deng and H-S. P. Wong present very interesting analytical models of electrostatic gate capacitance of 1-D field-effect transistors (FETs) with multiple cylindrical conducting channels. The observed agreement with 3D numerical simulations is very good. The paper also shows that effective ways to improve device speed areincreasing the number of channels per gate and reducing the gate height.

R. Kaur et al. present a unified subthreshold model for sub-100-nm nonuniformly doped channel MOSFET. The model is shown to be valid for different lateral and transverse channel-engineered structures, by comparing with 2D simulations. Based on the results obtained, the authors propose a novel device architecture incorporating the benefits of asymmetric halo and LDD doping.

W. Bian et al. present an analytic potential-based model for the undoped surrounding-gate MOSFETs. It is based on the same approach as the paper by D. Jimenez et al,as well as the one by B. IƱiguez et al. but is written on a potential-based formulation.

S. Locci et al. present an analytical model for cylindrical thin-film transistors, which was validated by comparison with experimental results. The authors also compare the performances of cylindrical TFTs with those of planar TFTs.

S. Bayshia et al. propose an analytical subthreshold surface potential model for dual-material gate MOSFETs which considers a varying depth of the channel depletion layer. Good agreement was found with 2D numerical simulations.

A. S. Roy and C. C. Enz develop an analytical large-signal cyclo-stationary low-Frequency noise with arbitrary periodic input. They show that an averaged time constant and an averaged trap density can model the cyclo-stationarity of RTS and flicker noise, respectively.

R. Grazner, F. Schwierz and V. M. Polyakov present an analytical model describing the effects of 2D quantum–mechanical carrier confinement on the threshold voltage of undoped multiple-gate MOSFETs. This model was valiudated by a comparison with self-consistent solutions of 1-D and 2-D Schroedinger and Poisson equations.

M. I. B. Shams et al. show in their paper that in a C-V model of ultrathin gate dielectric MOS devices it is necessary to include the dependence on the barrier height at the Si–dielectric interface and the substrate doping density, and they propose an empirical equation which considers these effects.

S. Kristiansson, F. Ingvarsson and K. O. Jeppsson present a compact spreading resistance model for substrate noise coupling analysis which uses no fitting parameters and is also scalable with the resistivity and thickness of the substrate, as well as with the contact size.

CMRF 2007

The 2007 Workshop on Compact Modeling for RF/Microwave Applications (CMRF'07), organized in conjunction with the IEEE Bipolar/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting (BCTM2007) will be held on October 3 2007 in Boston, Massachussets.

CMRF 2007 is sponsored by the Delft Institute for Micro-electronics and Submicrontechnology and technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Electron Devices Society.

CMRF is focused on the compact modeling for RF and microwave applications, but not only of bipolar devices. Papers on RF and microwave FET devices can also be presented at CMRF. In fact, CMRF has become a very useful event to get a good picture of the state-of-the-art in this field, and discuss the new trends on compact modeling for RF and microwave applications of all types of devices.

The 2007 edition of CMRF will consist on four sessions: SiGe Compact Modeling, Analog Circuit Verification, III-V compact modeling, and Advanced Characterization and Modeling for RF Power Applications.


Besides, this year CMRF will include a meeting of experts from advanced SiGe technology and from III-V technology.

BCTM'07

The 2007 IEEE Bipolar and BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting (BCTM2007) will be held in Boston, Massachussets, from September 30 to October 3 2007. The conference site will be the Marriot Long Wharf Hotel in Boston.

BCTM is the largest conference in bipolar and BiCMOS technologies and circuits, addressing fabrication, design, performance, testing and applications of bipolar and BiCMOS devices and circuits.


BCTM'07 will include three modeling sessions about bipolar devices: one large signal modeling session, one session about thermal effects, modeling and reliability, and one session about bipolar modeling and characterization. The power device session also incxludes one paper about compact thermal modeling.

In conjunction with BCTM'07, there will be a number of intersting BCTM short courses.

But for compact modeling researchers, the most interesting event held in conjunction with BCTM 2007 is the Workshop on Compact Modeling for RF/Microwave Applications, on October 3 2007.

BMAS 2007

The 2007 IEEE International Behavioral Modeling and Simulation Conference (BMAS 2007) will be held in San Jose, CA, on September 20-21, in conjunction with the 2007 Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC), in the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, at the heart of Silicon Valley.

BMAS addresses behavioral modeling and simulation for analog electronic circuits and systems. Topics include the development and application of behavioral languages and simulators, modeling practices and automatic extraction of models. Particular focus is placed on the Verilog-AMS and VHDL-AMS languages are of particular interest. The General Chair is Colin C. McAndrew (from Freescale Semiconductor), a recognized authority in the field of compact and behavioral modeling.

This year the BMAS program consists of several interesting sessions: applications of behavioral modeling, behavioral modeling tools, two sessions about behavioral models, and one poster and exhibit session.

Among the models presented in BMAS 2007, we can highlight a liquid crystall cell macro-model with Verilog-A, a SPICE model for piezoelectric transducers, a MEMS accelerometer model, a phase change memory model using Verilog-A, and a behavioral simulation of biological neuron systems using VHDL and VHDL-A.

For compact and behavioral modeling researchers, BMAS is no doubt a very interesting conference to attend, and for circuit designers, it is a very good complement to CCIC.

Sep 12, 2007

Paper on de-embedding RF FETs

In this month's issue of Electronics Letters, there is a paper titled "Simplified RF noise de-embedding method for on-wafer CMOS FET", by Xiong, Y.-Z. Issaoun, A. Nan, L. Shi, J. Mouthaan, K. . I think it is interesting enough for all those of you that are using measurements.