Impact of Gamma-Ray Radiation on DC and RF Performance of 10-nm Bulk N-Channel FinFETs

Abstract

In this article, the impact of gamma-ray radiation on DC and RF response of 10-nm bulk n-channel FinFETs is investigated. Firstly, the radiation tolerance of these devices under DC measurement conditions is reported as various layout level device parameters, such as the gate length ( $L_{G}$ ), number of fins ( $N_{FIN}$ ), and number of fingers ( $N_{FINGER}$ ) are scaled. Then for the first time, the impact of gamma-ray radiation on small-signal RF response of the 10-nm bulk FinFETs is reported, which includes some of the RF figures-of-merit (FOM), such as, the input transconductance, intrinsic current gain, intrinsic voltage gain, and unilateral power gain. Furthermore, the effect of device geometry scaling on maximum oscillation frequency, $f_{MAX}$ , degradation due to gamma-ray radiation is reported. DC results show that long channel devices with small $N_{FIN}$ and large $N_{FINGER}$ are least impacted by gamma-ray radiation as opposed to short channel devices with large $N_{FIN}$ and small $N_{FINGER}$ . The RF results show that gamma-ray radiation causes major degradation (~ 40%) in $f_{MAX}$ , while the cut-off frequency, $f_{T}$ remains mostly unchanged. Finally, an empirical model is developed to predict the degradation in $f_{MAX}$ with changing device geometries and gamma-ray radiation dose.