Simulation of Ultra-Small MOSFETs Using a 2-D Quantum-Corrected Drift-Diffusion Model

The continued down-scaling of electronic devices, in particular the commercially dominant MOSFET, will force a fundamental change in the process of new electronics technology development in the next five to ten years. The cost of developing new technology generations is soaring along with the price of new fabrication facilities, even as competitive pressure intensifies to bring this new technology to market faster than ever before. To reduce cost and time to market, device simulation must become a more fundamental, indeed dominant, part of the technology development cycle. In order to produce these benefits, simulation accuracy must improve markedly. At the same time, device physics will become more complex, with the rapid increase in various small-geometry and quantum effects. This work describes both an approach to device simulator development and a physical model which advance the effort to meet the tremendous electronic device simulation challenge described above. The device simulation approach is to specify the physical model at a high level to a general-purpose (but highly efficient) partial differential equation solver (in this case PROPHET, developed by Lucent Technologies), which then simulates the model in 1-D, 2-D, or 3-D for a specified device and test regime. This approach allows for the rapid investigation of a wide range of device models and effects, which is certainly essential for device simulation to catch up with, and then stay ahead of, electronic device technology of the present and future. The physical device model used in this work is the density-gradient (DG) quantum correction to the drift-diffusion model [Ancona, Phys. Rev. B 35(5), 7959 (1987)]. This model adds tunneling and quantum smoothing of carrier density profiles to the drift-diffusion model. We used the DG model in 1-D and 2-D (for the first time) to simulate both bipolar and unipolar devices. Simulations of heavily-doped, short-base diodes indicated that the DG quantum corrections do not have a large effect on the IN characteristics of electronic devices without heteroj unction s. On the other hand, ultra-small MOSFETs certainly exhibit important quantum effects that the DG model will include: quantum repulsion of the inversion and gate charges from the oxide interfaces, and quantum tunneling through thin gate oxides. We present initial results of 2-D DG simulations of ultra-small MOSFETs. Subtle but important issues involving the specification of the model, boundary conditions, and interface constraints for DG simulation of MOSFETs will also be illuminated.