Influence of Joule effect on thermal response of nano FinFET transistors

Abstract

Integrated circuits based on FinFET nanodevices suffer from thermal processes related to heat dissipation caused by phonon transport bottlenecks. In this work, we report a numerical study of quasi-ballistic transport behavior in 20 nm FinFET transistors. Using a mathematical formulation, numerically implemented by the finite element method , we successfully validate the transfer characteristics and temporal temperature evolution compared with experimental and numerical works. We found that the proposed model, given by a calibrated charge drift-diffusion model coupled with the enhanced ballistic diffusive heat transport equation, predicts the experimental I–V characteristics and the transient temperature evolution well. The error given by this comparison is less than 10% in the I DS -V GS and T-t characteristics, respectively. We show that the proposed equations provide an improved approximation compared to the dual-phase lag and the Cattaneo-Vernotte models. From an engineering viewpoint, we found that the self-heating is concentrated at the end of the channel region at the drain side; this phenomenon was confirmed from literature by experimental results. • We report a numerical study of the quasi-ballistic transport behavior in 20 nm FinFET devices. • The model is able to predict the I(V) characteristics and heating phenomenon compared to experimental and numerical data. • The self-heating is concentrated at the end of the channel region at the drain side of the devices.