Asymmetric-Elevated-Source-Drain TFET: A Fairly Scalable and Reliable Device Architecture for Sub-400-mV Low-Stand-by-Power Digital Applications

Abstract

In this paper, silicon-based Asymmetric-Elevated-Source-Drain Tunnel Field-Effect Transistor (AESD-TFET), for gate lengths (LGs), viz. 70, 45, 32, 22, and 13 nm, is investigated for the first time to find its suitability in sub-400-mV low-stand-by-power (LSTP) digital operation, followed by finding its reliability and stability against the adverse effect of Positive Bias Temperature Instability (PBTI) for LG = 13 nm corresponding to the (recent) state-of-the-art technology node for the “More Moore” options in realizing LSTP digital functions. The whole work is executed with the help of 2-D numerical methods, via a model-calibration against a couple of experimental works on Elevated-Drain TFET (ED-TFET) and Elevated-Source TFET (ES-TFET), respectively, followed by a comparison of performances between the three, in terms of threshold voltage (VT), average subthreshold swing (SSavg), OFF-state current (IOFF), ION/IOFF ratio, OFF-state leakage power, and drain-induced barrier lowering (DIBL), and then a measurement of shifts in VT, IOFF, ION/IOFF, and SSavg for different PBTI stress conditions for temperature ≥ 300 K. For the optimum value of LG (i.e. 13 nm), a reduction of 56% and 66% in DIBL, a drop of 15.84% and 45.74% in SSavg, a reduction of about 1 decade and 3 decades in IOFF, and an improvement of nearly 1 decade and 2 decades in ION/IOFF have been obtained for the AESD-TFET against the ES- and ED-TFET devices, respectively. The same has also been found to show maximum stability against the PBTI effect under the two-temperature conditions (i.e. 300 K and 398 K) in terms of IOFF, ION/IOFF and SSavg with the lowest possible shifts in VT (∼ 0%) and SSavg (9%), besides maintaining the most excellent absolute values of the aforesaid parameters.