Extraction of Exact Layer Thickness of Ultra-thin Gate Dielectrics in Nanoscaled CMOS under Strong Inversion

Abstract

The impact of surface quantization on device parameters of a Si metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) capacitor has been analyzed in the present work. Variation of conduction band bending, position of discrete energy states, variation of surface potential, and the variation of inversion carrier concentration at charge centroid have been analyzed for different gate voltages, substrate doping concentrations and oxide thicknesses. Oxide thickness calculated from the experimental C-V data of a MOS capacitor is different from the actual oxide thickness, since such data include the effect of surface quantization. A correction factor has been developed considering the effect of charge centroid in presence of surface quantization at strong inversion and it has been observed that the correction due to surface quantization is crucial for highly doped substrate with thinner gate oxide.