[paper] Electron Mobility Distribution in FD-SOI MOSFETs

Nima Dehdashti Akhavan^a, Gilberto Antonio Umana-Membreno^a, Renjie Gu^a, Jarek Antoszewski^a, Lorenzo Faraone^a and Sorin Cristoloveanu^b

Electron mobility distribution in FD-SOI MOSFETs using a NEGF-Poisson approach

Solid-State Electronics; Available online 14 March 2022, 108283

DOI: 10.1016/j.sse.2022.108283

   
a The University of Western Australia, Crawley (AU)
b IMEP-LAHC, INP Minatec, Grenoble (F)

Abstract: Modern electronic devices consist of several semiconductor layers, where each layer exhibits a unique carrier transport properties that can be represented by a unique mobility characteristic. To date, the mobility spectrum analysis technique is the main approach that has been developed and applied to the analysis of conductivity mechanisms of multi-carrier semiconductor structures and devices. Currently, there are no theoretical calculations of the mobility distribution in semiconductor structures or devices and specifically in MOSFET devices. In this article, we present a theoretical study of the electron mobility distribution in planar fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) transistors employing quantum mechanical modelling. The simulation results indicate that electronic transport in the 10 nm thick Si channel layer at room-temperature is due to two distinct and well-defined electron species for channel length varying from 50 nm to 200 nm. The two electron mobility distributions provide clear evidence of sub-band modulated transport in 10-nm thick Si planar FD-SOI MOSFETs that are associated with primed and non-primed valleys of silicon. The potential of the top gate electrode has been modulated, and thus only the top channel inversion-layer electron population transport parameters have been investigated employing self-consistent non-equilibrium Green’s function (NEGF)–Poisson numerical calculations. The numerical framework presented can be used to interpret experimental results obtained by magnetic-field dependent geometrical magnetoresistance measurements and mobility spectrum analysis, and provides greater insight into electron mobility distributions in nanostructured FET devices.

Fig: Qinv is defined as the electron density per unit length at the maximum 

of the first subband (top of the barrier) often referred to as a “virtual source”

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the Australian Research Council (DP170104555), the Horizon 2020 ASCENT EU project (Access to European Nanoelectronics Network – Project no. 654384), the Western Australian node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF), and the Western Australian Government’s Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation.

[paper] NESS Open-Source TCAD Environment

Cristina Medina-Bailon, Tapas Dutta, Fikru Adamu-Lema, Ali Rezaei, Daniel Nagy,

Vihar P. Georgiev, and Asen Asenov

Nano-Electronic Simulation Software (NESS): 

A Novel Open-Source TCAD Simulation Environment

Journal of Microelectronic Manufacturing

Vol 3 (4) : 20030407 2020

DOI:  10.33079/jomm.20030407

Abstract: This paper presents the latest status of the open source advanced TCAD simulator called Nano-Electronic Simulation Software (NESS) which is currently under development at the Device Modeling Group of the University of Glasgow. NESS is designed with the main aim to provide an open, flexible, and easy to use simulation environment where users are able not only to perform numerical simulations but also to develop and implement new simulation methods and models. Currently, NESS is organized into two main components: the structure generator and a collection of different numerical solvers; which are linked to supporting components such as an effective mass extractor and materials database. This paper gives a brief overview of each of the components by describing their main capabilities, structure, and theory behind each one of them. Moreover, to illustrate the capabilities of each component, here we have given examples considering various device structures, architectures, materials, etc. at multiple simulation conditions. We expect that NESS will prove to be a great tool for both conventional as well as exploratory device research programs and projects.

Fig: Randomly generated atomistic device considering random discrete dopants (RDD) and metal gate granularity (MGG) in the NESS simulation domain

Acknowledgments: This project was initiated by the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 688101 SUPERAID7 and has received further funding from EPSRC UKRI Innovation Fellowship scheme under grant agreement No. EP/S001131/1 (QSEE), No. EP/P009972/1 (QUANTDEVMOD) and No. EP/S000259/1 (Variability PDK for design based research on FPGA/neuro computing); and from H2020-FETOPEN-2019 scheme under grant agreement No.862539-Electromed-FET OPEN. The coauthors would like to thank Dr. Carrillo-Nuñez, Dr. Lee, Dr. Berrada, Dr. Badami, and Dr. Duan for their former contribution to NESS; as well as Dr. Donetti for the possibility of using the 1DMC tool. 

[paper] NESS

Nano-electronic Simulation Software (NESS): 

a flexible nano-device simulation platform

Salim Berrada, Hamilton Carrillo-Nunez, Jaehyun Lee, Cristina Medina-Bailon, Tapas Dutta, Oves Badami, Fikru Adamu-Lema, Vasanthan Thirunavukkarasu, Vihar Georgiev and Asen Asenov 

Journal of Computational Electronics (2020)

DOI: 10.1007/s10825-020-01519-0

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present a flexible and open-source multi-scale simulation software which has been developed by the Device Modelling Group at the University of Glasgow to study the charge transport in contemporary ultra-scaled Nano-CMOS devices. The name of this new simulation environment is Nano-electronic Simulation Software (NESS). Overall NESS is designed to be flexible, easy to use and extendable. Its main two modules are the structure generator and the numerical solvers module. The structure generator creates the geometry of the devices, defines the materials in each region of the simulation domain and includes eventually sources of statistical variability. The charge transport models and corresponding equations are implemented within the numerical solvers module and solved self-consistently with Poisson equation. Currently, NESS contains a drift–diffusion, Kubo–Greenwood, and non-equilibrium Green’s function (NEGF) solvers. The NEGF solver is the most important transport solver in the current version of NESS. Therefore, this paper is primarily focused on the description of the NEGF methodology and theory. It also provides comparison with the rest of the transport solvers implemented in NESS. The NEGF module in NESS can solve transport problems in the ballistic limit or including electron–phonon scattering. It also contains the Flietner model to compute the band-to-band tunneling current in heterostructures with a direct band gap. Both the structure generator and solvers are linked in NESS to supporting modules such as effective mass extractor and materials database. Simulation results are outputted in text or vtk format in order to be easily visualized and analyzed using 2D and 3D plots. The ultimate goal is for NESS to become open-source, flexible and easy to use TCAD simulation environment which can be used by researchers in both academia and industry and will facilitate collaborative software development.

FIG: Flowchart of NESS detailing its modular structure

NESS will be released in the summer of 2020 as an open-source software which makes it very interesting for both academia and industry in helping to address the challenges subsequent to the further down-scaling of CMOS components.

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 688101 SUPERAID7. Also, this project has received funding from EPSRC UKRI under Grant Agreements No. EP/S001131/1 (QSEE) and No. EP/P009972/1 (QUANTDEVMOD).