Simulation study of multi-source hetero-junction TFET-based capacitor less 1T DRAM for low power applications

Abstract

A capacitorless one-transistor dynamic random access memory (1T DRAM) based on multi-source hetero-junction tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) is presented in this work. The analysis of the three memory functions: Write, Hold and Read of 1T DRAM has been carried out using Synopsys TCAD simulations. A storage region of Ge material is used for the accumulation of holes/to store the charge carriers. The variation in length of Ge-storage region, under lap length (Lunder), and temperature is performed to analyse the DRAM performance. In the Write operation, the tunneling window reduces to 15 nm and holes can be easily stored in the Ge-storage region. In case of Hold1 and Read1 operations, the potential barriers are reduced by 0.24 eV, and 0.1 eV respectively. In the proposed multi-source TFET with 14 nm gate length, read current ratio i.e. IR1/IR0 of 4.4, retention time (RT) greater than 10 sec, and sense margin (SM) of 1.27 × 10−6 A/µm is achieved at room temperature. The proposed multi-source TFET based 1T DRAM is operating at very low gate voltages. Therefore, this device is well suited for low power applications.