Essential Physics of the OFF-State Current in Nanoscale MOSFETs and Tunnel FETs

• Published in: IEEE transactions on electron devices Vol. 62; no. 9; pp. 3084 - 3091
• Main Authors: Esseni, David, Pala, Marco G., Rollo, Tommaso
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01-09-2015; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: DIBL; Engineering Sciences; III-V materials; Logic gates; Mathematical model; Micro and nanotechnologies; Microelectronics; MOSFET; MOSFETs; natural length; nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF); Numerical models; scaling; subthreshold slope; tunnel FET; Tunneling; natural length; subthreshold slope; scaling; nonequilibrium Green’s function (NEGF); tunnel FET; III–V materials; MOSFETs; DIBL; nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF); III-V materials
• ISSN: 0018-9383; 1557-9646
• DOI: 10.1109/TED.2015.2458171

We present a study about of the essential physical elements governing the OFF-state current in MOSFETs and tunnel FETs at truly nanoscale dimensions. By combining semianalytical models and full-quantum self-consistent simulations, we discuss the physical mechanisms responsible of the minimum OFF-current and of the ambipolarity of the current transfer characteristics. Moreover, we revisit the applicability of the natural transistor length as a metric for the short-channel effects and assess the tunnel FETs potential to provide subthreshold swings below 60 mV/decade and better than their MOSFET counterparts for gate lengths approaching 10 nm.