Search Results (4)

In this paper, a soft-error-aware radiation-hardened 6T SRAM cell has been implemented using germanium-based dopingless tunnel FET (Ge DLTFET). In a circuit level simulation, the device-circuit co-design approach is used. Semiconductor devices are very prone to the radiation environment; hence, finding out the solution to the problem became a necessity for the designers. Single event upset (SEU), also known as soft error, is one of the most frequent issues to tackle in semiconductor devices. To mitigate the effect of soft error due to single-event upset, the radiation-hardening-by-design (RHBD) technique has been employed for Ge DLTFET-based SRAM cells. This technique uses RC feedback paths between the two cross-coupled inverters of an SRAM cell. The soft-error sensitivity is estimated for a conventional and RHBD-based SRAM cell design. It is found that the RHBD-based SRAM cell design is more efficient to mitigate the soft-error effect in comparison to the conventional design. The delay and stability parameters, obtained from the N-curve, of the Ge DLTFET-based SRAM cell performs better than the conventional Si TFET-based SRAM cell. There is an improvement of 305x & 850x in the static power noise margin and write trip power values of the Ge DLTFET SRAM cell with respect to the conventional Si TFET SRAM cell. Full article

The device structure of DLTFET is optimized by the Silvaco TCAD software to solve the problems of lower on-state current and larger miller capacitance of traditional doping-less tunneling field effect transistors (DLTFETs), and the performance can be greatly improved. Different from the traditional DLTFETs, the source region and pocket region of the doping-less TFET with the Ge/SiGe/Si hetero-junction and hetero-gate dielectric (H-DLTFET), respectively, use the narrow band-gap semiconductor Ge and SiGe materials, and the channel and drain region both use the silicon material. The H-DLTFET device use the Ge/SiGe hetero-junction engineering to decrease the tunneling barrier width, increase the band-to-band tunneling current, and obtain the higher current switching ratio and ultra-low sub-threshold swing (SS). Besides, the gate dielectric under auxiliary gate uses the low-k dielectric SiO₂ material, which can effectively reduce the miller capacitance and improve the capacitance and frequency characteristics. The on-state current, switching ratio, trans-conductance, output current, and output conductance values of H-DLTFET can be increased by two, two, one, one, and one order of magnitude when compared with the DLTFET, respectively. Meanwhile, the point SS and average SS, respectively, decrease from 13 mV/Dec and 31.6 mV/Dec to 5 mV/Dec and 14.3 mV/Dec, and the gate-drain capacitance decrease from 0.99 fF/μm to 0.1 fF/μm. Besides, the cutoff frequency and gain bandwidth product of H-DLTFET are much larger than that of DLTFET, which can be explained by the excellent DC characteristics. The above simulation results show that the H-DLTFET has the better frequency characteristics, so it is more suitable for applications of ultra-low-power integrated circuits. Full article

A high performance doping-less tunneling field effect transistor with Ge/Si_0.6Ge_0.4/Si heterojunction (H-DLTFET) is proposed in this paper. Compared to the conventional doping-less tunneling field effect transistor (DLTFET), the source and channel regions of H-DLTFET respectively use the germanium and Si_0.6Ge_0.4 materials to get the steeper energy band, which can also increase the electric field of source/channel tunneling junction. Meanwhile, the double-gate process is used to improve the gate-to-channel control. In addition, the effects of Ge content, electrode work functions, and device structure parameters on the performance of H-DLTFET are researched in detail, and then the above optimal device structure parameters can be obtained. Compared to the DLTFET, the simulation results show that the maximum on-state current, trans-conductance, and output current of H-DLTFET are all increased by one order of magnitude, whereas the off-state current is reduced by two orders of magnitude, so the switching ratio increase by three orders of magnitude. At the same time, the cut-off frequency and gain bandwidth product of H-DLTFET increase from 1.75 GHz and 0.23 GHz to 23.6 GHz and 4.69 GHz, respectively. Therefore, the H-DLTFET is more suitable for the ultra-low power integrated circuits. Full article

In this paper, a novel doping-less tunneling field-effect transistor with Si_0.6Ge_0.4 heterojunction (H-DLTFET) is proposed using TCAD simulation. Unlike conventional doping-less tunneling field-effect transistors (DLTFETs), in H-DLTFETs, germanium and Si_0.6Ge_0.4 are used as source and channel materials, respectively, to provide higher carrier mobility and smaller tunneling barrier width. The energy band and charge carrier tunneling efficiency of the tunneling junction become steeper and higher as a result of the Si_0.6Ge_0.4 heterojunction. In addition, the effects of the source work function, gate oxide dielectric thickness, and germanium content on the performance of the H-DLTFET are analyzed systematically, and the below optimal device parameters are obtained. The simulation results show that the performance parameters of the H-DLTFET, such as the on-state current, on/off current ratio, output current, subthreshold swing, total gate capacitance, cutoff frequency, and gain bandwidth (GBW) product when V_d = 1 V and V_g = 2 V, are better than those of conventional silicon-based DLTFETs. Therefore, the H-DLTFET has better potential for use in ultra-low power devices. Full article