Low-Frequency Noise Characterization of Germanium n-Channel FinFETs

• Published in: IEEE transactions on electron devices Vol. 67; no. 7; pp. 2872 - 2877
• Main Authors: de Oliveira, Alberto V., Xie, Duan, Arimura, Hiroaki, Boccardi, Guillaume, Collaert, Nadine, Claeys, Cor, Horiguchi, Naoto, Simoen, Eddy
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-07-2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: 1/<italic xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">f noise; carrier number fluctuations; charge carrier mobility; Coulomb scattering coefficient; Depletion; Field effect transistors; fin-field-effect transistor (FinFET); FinFETs; generation-recombination noise component; Germanium; germanium device; input-referred voltage power spectral density; LF noise; Logic gates; low-frequency-noise; MOSFETs; Noise; oxide trap density; Room temperature; Scattering; Semiconductor devices; Silicon; threshold voltage
• ISSN: 0018-9383; 1557-9646
• DOI: 10.1109/TED.2020.2990714

This article presents an experimental, room temperature, low-frequency noise characterization of germanium n-channel fin-field-effect transistors (finFETs) integrated on silicon. After determining the dominant mechanism in the noise spectrum, the main parameters associated with the noise mechanism are extracted and evaluated as a function of fin width from a planar-like (100 nm) up to narrow fin (20 nm) for 1-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\mu \text{m} </tex-math></inline-formula> length devices. The main findings are that the 1/<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{f} </tex-math></inline-formula> noise plays an important role in the Ge n-finFETs, whereby the trap density profiles in the gate-stack are quite uniform and have a lower level than in n-/p-channel Ge planar MOSFETs. In addition, a generation-recombination (GR) component was found in 160-nm-length devices, which is caused by GR centers located in the depletion region.