Pass transistor with dual threshold voltage domino logic design using standby switch for reduced subthreshold leakage current

Dual threshold voltages domino design methodology utilizes low threshold voltages for all transistors that can switch during the evaluate mode and utilizes high threshold voltages for all transistors that can switch during the precharge modes. We employed standby switch can strongly turn off all of the high threshold voltage transistors which enhances the effectiveness of a dual threshold voltage CMOS technology to reduce the subthreshold leakage current. Subthreshold leakage currents are especially important in burst mode type integrated circuits where the majority of the time for system is in an idle mode. The standby switch allowed a domino system enters and leaves a low leakage standby mode within a single clock cycle. In addition, we combined domino dynamic circuits style with pass transistor XNOR and CMOS NAND gates to realize logic 1 output during its precharge phase, but not affects circuits operation in its evaluation and standby phase. The first stage NAND gates output logic 1 can guarantee the second stage computation its correct logic function when system is in a cascaded operation mode. The processing required for dual threshold voltage circuit configuration is to provide an extra threshold voltage involves only an additional implant processing step, but performs lower dynamic power consumption, lower delay and high fan-out, high switching frequencies circuits characteristics. SPICE simulation for our proposed circuits were made using a 0.18 µm CMOS process from TSMC, with 10 fF capacitive loads in all output nodes, using the parameters for typical process corner at 25 °C, the simulation results demonstrated that our designed 8-bit carry look-ahead adders reduced chip area, power consumption and propagation delay time more than 40%, 45% and around 20%, respectively. Wafer based our design were fabricated and measured, the measured data were listed and compared with simulation data and prior works. SPICE simulation also manifested lower sensitivity of our design to power supply, temperature, capacitive load and process variations than the dynamic CMOS technologies.     

Sleep switch dual threshold Voltage domino logic with reduced standby leakage current

A circuit technique is presented for reducing the subthreshold leakage energy consumption of domino logic circuits. Sleep switch transistors are proposed to place an idle dual threshold voltage domino logic circuit into a low leakage state. The circuit technique enhances the effectiveness of a dual threshold voltage CMOS technology to reduce the subthreshold leakage current by strongly turning off all of the high threshold voltage transistors. The sleep switch circuit technique significantly reduces the subthreshold leakage energy as compared to both standard low-threshold voltage and dual threshold voltage domino logic circuits. A domino adder enters and leaves a low leakage sleep mode within a single clock cycle. The energy overhead of the circuit technique is low, justifying the activation of the proposed sleep scheme by providing a net savings in total power consumption during short idle periods.     

Standby power consumption estimation by interacting leakage current mechanisms in nanoscaled CMOS digital circuits

Leakage currents are gaining importance as design parameters in nanometer CMOS technologies. A novel leakage current estimation method, which takes into account the dependency of leakage mechanisms, is proposed for general CMOS complex gates, including non-series-parallel transistor arrangements, not covered by existing approaches. The main contribution of this work is a fast, accurate, and systematic procedure to determine the potentials at transistor network nodes for calculating standby static currents. The proposed method has been validated through electrical simulations, showing an error smaller than 7% and an 80× speed-up when comparing to electrical simulation.     

Temperature dependent model for threshold voltage and subthreshold slope of strained-Si channel MOSFETs with a polysilicon gate

We present a temperature dependent model for the threshold voltage V_t and subthreshold slope S of strained-Si channel MOSFETs and validate it with reported experimental data for a wide range of temperature, channel doping concentration, oxide thickness and strain value. Such model includes the effect of lattice strain on material, temperature dependent effective mass of carriers, interface-trapped charge density and bandgap narrowing due to heavy channel doping. Also considered are polydepletion effects, carrier localization effect in the ultra-thin channel and quantum-mechanical effects. Our investigation reveals that the threshold voltage reduces linearly with increasing temperature whereas the subthreshold slope increases. In addition V_t is found to be sensitive to strain while S is weakly dependent on strain. Moreover, the channel doping concentration influences both V_t and S, and also the rate of change of V_t with temperature. Furthermore, S decreases for a lightly doped channel particularly at lower temperatures.     

Analysis and optimization of leakage current characteristics in sub-65 nm dual Vt footed domino circuits

The inputs and clock signals combination sleep state dependent leakage current characteristics is analyzed and the optimal sleep state is examined in sub-65 nm dual V_t footed domino circuits. Simulations based on 65 and 45 nm BSIM4 models show that the conventional CHIL state (the clock signal is high and inputs are all low) is ineffective for lowering the leakage current and the conventional CHIH state (the clock signal and inputs are all high) is only effective to suppress the leakage current at high temperature other than the high fan-in domino circuits. For the high fan-in footed domino circuits at high temperature and most of footed domino circuits at room temperature, the CLIL (the clock signal and inputs are all low) state is preferable to reduce the leakage current. Further, the influence of the process variations on the leakage current characteristics of the dual V_t footed domino circuits is also evaluated. It is observed that the average leakage current is universally higher than the date reported in the normal corner and the CLIL state is the optimum choice considering the leakage current reduction and the robustness to the process variations simultaneously.     

Analytical modeling of subthreshold current and subthreshold swing of an underlap DGMOSFET with tied-independent gate and symmetric-asymmetric options

Novel analytical models for subthreshold current and subthreshold slope of a generic underlap DGMOSFET are proposed. The proposed models are validated with published models, experimental data along with numerical simulation results. The reasonably good agreement shows the accuracy of the proposed model. It is demonstrated how device subthreshold leakage current and subthreshold slope values can be favorably affected by proper back gate biasing, back gate asymmetry and gate work function engineering in combination with gate underlap engineering. It is demonstrated that independent gate operation in combination with gate underlap engineering significantly reduce subthreshold leakage currents as compared to nonunderlap-tied gate DGMOSFET. With the reduction in body thickness, an improvement in subthreshold slope value of underlap 4T DGMOSFET is seen, particularly as back/front gate oxide asymmetry. Developed models demonstrate that asymmetric work function underlap 4T DGMOSFETs would have better device subthreshold slope value along with increased back gate oxide asymmetry.     

低栅漏电的增强型InAlN/GaN MISHEMT

中文：本文报道了采用热氧化的技术实现低栅泄漏电的增强型InAlN/GaN MISHEMT。在VDS=5V和VGS=0V时,关态漏极电流达到了10-7A/mm。器件的阈值电压为2.2V。当VDS=5V时,漏极电流在VGS=4.5V时,达到349mA/mm,在VGS=3.4V时,最大跨导为179ms/mm。在当VGS= -15V时候,器件的反向栅泄漏电流达到4.9?10-7A/mm。     

Quantum-mechanical effects and gate leakage current of nanoscale n-type FinFETs: A 2d simulation study

This paper simulates a kind of new sub-50 nm n-type double gate MOS nanotransistors by solving coupled Poisson-Schrödinger equations in a self-consistent manner with a finite element method, and presents a systematic simulation-based study on quantum-mechanical effects, gate leakage current of FinFETs. The simulation results indicate that the deviation from the classical model becomes more important as the gate oxide, gate length and Fin channel width becomes thinner and the Fin channel doping increases. Gate tunneling current density reduces with the body thickness decreasing. Excessive scaling increases the gate current below Fin thickness of 5 nm. The gate current can be dramatically reduced beyond 10¹⁷ cm⁻³ with the Fin body doping increasing. In order to understand the influence of electron confinement, quantum mechanical simulation results are also compared with the results from the classical approach. Our simulation results indicate that quantum mechanical simulation is essential for the realistic optimization of the FinFET structure.     

Mechanism and detection of poly gate leakage with nonvisual defects by voltage contrast inspection

The research aims at nonvisual defects causing the poly gate leakage failure and the corresponding inline voltage-contrast (VC) inspection. Electron beam inspection (EBI) begins to be frequently used for scanning either SRAM or DRAM cell area in nano-scaled technologies. The research, furthermore, extends EBI to logical area of an ASIC product and proposes an inline detectable methodology for gate leakages. Extreme tiny and nonvisual residues could happen during gate etch processes by the step height between active area (AA) and shallow trench isolation (STI), and the tiny defects are difficult to be located even some of those did lead to chip probe (CP) test failure. The subsequent implant processes would punch through those tiny poly residues, make the residue being conductive, and finally electrons on the gate would leak to the ground through the residue. Those nonvisual residues act as bridges for gate leakages. EBI with designed positive charging modes was applied into the series of implement steps and found the leakage by a significant voltage contrast signal post the source/drain implantation. The bright VC of the gate poly implied the leakage electrons charging on the gate. A series of process experiments based on the model for reducing leakages was tested and quickly verified by the EBI in front end of the line. An optimal process integration condition was soon carried out with a significant chip yield enhancement.     

Robustness comparison of DG FinFETs with symmetric, asymmetric, tied and independent gate options with circuit co-design for ultra low power subthreshold logic

Double gate FinFETs are shown to be better candidates for subthreshold logic design than equivalent bulk devices. However it is not so clear which configuration of DG FinFETs will be more optimal for subthreshold logic. In this paper, we compare the different device and circuit level performance metrics of DG FinFETs with symmetric, asymmetric, tied and independent gate options for subthreshold logic. We observe that energy delay product (EDP) shows a better subthreshold performance metric than power delay product (PDP) and it is observed that the tied gate symmetric option has ≈78% lower EDP value than that of independent gate option for subthreshold logic. The asymmetry in back gate oxide thickness adds to further reduction in EDP for tied gate and has no significant effect on independent gate option. The robustness (measured in terms of % variation in device/circuit performance metrics for a ±10% variation in design parameters) of DG FinFETs with various options has also been investigated in presence of different design parameter variations such as silicon body thickness, channel length, threshold voltage, supply voltage and temperature, etc. Independent gate option has been seen to be more robust (≈40% less) than that of tied gate option for subthreshold logic. Comparison of logic families for subthreshold regime with DG FinFET options shows that for tied gate option, sub-CMOS, sub-Domino and sub-DCVSL have almost similar and better energy consumption and robustness characteristics with respect to PVT variations than other families.     

High air stability of threshold voltage on gate bias stress in pentacene TFTs with a hydroxyl-free and amorphous fluoropolymer as gate insulators

We investigated the air stabilities of threshold voltages (V_th) on gate bias stress in pentacene thin-film transistors (TFTs) with a hydroxyl-free and amorphous fluoropolymer as gate insulators. The 40-nm-thick thin films of spin-coated fluoropolymer had excellent electrical insulating properties, and the pentacene TFTs exhibited negligible current hysteresis, low leakage current, a field-effect mobility of 0.45 cm²/Vs and an on/off current ratio of 3 × 10⁷ when it was operated at −20 V in ambient air. After a gate bias stress of 10⁴ s, a small V_th shift below 1.1 V was obtained despite non-passivation of the pentacene layer. We have discussed that the excellent air stability of V_th was attributed to the insulator surface without hydroxyl groups.     

A low gate leakage current and small equivalent oxide thickness MOSFET with Ti/HfO2 high-k gate dielectric

Annealing effects on electrical characteristics and reliability of MOS device with HfO₂ or Ti/HfO₂ high-k dielectric are studied in this work. For the sample with Ti/HfO₂ higher-k dielectric after a post-metallization annealing (PMA) at 600 °C, its equivalent oxide thickness value is 7.6 Å and the leakage density is about 4.5 × 10⁻² A/cm². As the PMA is above 700 °C, the electrical characteristics of MOS device would be severely degraded.