A study of the operation of surface- and buried-mode p-channel FET's is conducted. The buried-channel devices are fabricated using n-type polysilicon gates while the surface-channel devices employ p-type polysilicon gates. Using devices with different channel lengths (20 to 0.4 µm), threshold voltage lowering, subthreshold characteristics, transconductance, punchthrough, and body effects are compared over a wide range of background doping concentrations. In the study surface-channel devices were found to be more resistant to short-channel effects than their buried-channel counterparts independent of background doping concentration. Two-dimensional computer simulation revealed that buried-channel devices are more subject to drain-induced barrier lowering and bulk punchthrough. The body effect for the surface-channel device is lower than its counterpart at low background doping concentrations whereas the buried-channel device has a lower body effect at high background doping levels. The effective carrier mobility of buried-channel devices was found greater than that of surface devices. The net difference in the transconductance, however, is offset by the high parasitic diffusion resistance.

Design tradeoffs between surface and buried-channel FET's

A field effect transistor (FET) operates in the enhancement mode without requiring inversion by setting the device's threshold voltage to twice the Fermi potential of the semiconductor material. The FET, referred to as a Fermi Threshold FET or Fermi-FET, has a threshold voltage which is independent of oxide thickness, channel length, drain voltage and substrate doping, the vertical electric field in the channel becomes zero, thereby maximizing carrier mobility, and minimizing hot electron effects. A high speed device, substantially independent of device dimensions is thereby provided, which may be manufactured using relaxed groundrules, to provide low cost, high yield devices. Temperature dependence of threshold voltage may also be eliminated by providing a semiconductor gate contact which neutralizes the effect of substrate contact potential. Source and drain subdiffusion regions may be provided to simultaneously maximize the punch-through and impact ionization voltages of the devices, so that short channel devices do not require scaled-down power supply voltages. Multi gate devices may be provided. An accelerator gate, adjacent the drain, may further improve performance. The Fermi-FET criteria may be maintained, while allowing for a deep channel by providing a substrate contact for the Fermi-FET and applying a substrate bias to this contact. Substrate enhancement pocket regions adjacent the source and drain regions may be provided to produce a continuous depletion region under the source, drain and channel regions to thereby minimize punch-through effects.

Fermi threshold field effect transistor

A silicon-on-insulator (SOI) field effect transistor (FET) operates in the enhancement mode without requiring inversion by setting the device's threshold voltage to twice the Fermi potential of the thin semiconductor layer in which the transistor is fabricated. The FET, referred to as a Fermi Threshold SOI FET or Fermi SOI FET, has a threshold voltage which is independent of oxide thickness, channel length, drain voltage and substrate channel doping. The vertical electric field in the substrate channel becomes zero, thereby maximizing carrier mobility, and minimizing hot electron effects. The thin silicon layer in which the devices are formed is sufficiently thick such that the channel is not fully depleted at pinch-off. A high speed device, substantially independent of device dimensions is thereby provided, which may be manufactured using relaxed groundrules, to provide low cost, high yield devices. Temperature dependence of threshold voltage may also be eliminated by providing a semiconductor gate contact which neutralizes the effect of substrate contact potential. Multiple gate devices may be provided. An accelerator gate, adjacent the drain, may further improve performance.

Fermi threshold silicon-on-insulator field effect transistor

A pair of complementary CJIGFETs (100 and 160) are created from a body of semiconductor material (102 and 104). Each CJIGFET is formed with (a) a pair of laterally separated source/drain zones (112 and 114 or 172 and 174) situated along the upper surface of the semiconductor body, (b) a channel region (110 or 170) extending between the source/drain zones, and (c) a gate electrode (118 or 178) overlying, and electrically insulated from, the channel region. The gate electrode of each CJIGFET has a Fermi energy level within 0.3 ev of the middle of the energy band gap of the semiconductor material. One of the transistors typically conducts current according to a field-induced-channel mode while the other transistor conducts current according to a metallurgical-channel mode. The magnitude of the threshold voltage for each CJIGFET is normally no more than 0.5 V.

Design and fabrication of semiconductor structure having complementary channel-junction insulated-gate field-effect transistors whose gate electrodes have work functions close to mid-gap semiconductor value

A semiconductor technology combines a normally off n-channel channel-junction insulated-gate field-effect transistor (“IGFET”) (104) and an n-channel surface-channel IGFET (100 or 160) to reduce low-frequency 1/f noise. The channel-junction IGFET is normally fabricated to be of materially greater gate dielectric thickness than the surface-channel IGFET so as to operate across a greater voltage range than the surface-channel IGFET. A p-channel surface-channel IGFET (102 or 162), which is typically fabricated to be of approximately the same gate-dielectric thickness as the n-channel surface-channel IGFET, is preferably combined with the two n-channel IGFETs to produce a complementary-IGFET structure. A further p-channel IGFET (106, 180, 184, or 192), which is typically fabricated to be of approximately the same gate dielectric thickness as the n-channel channel-junction IGFET, is also preferably included. The further p-channel IGFET can be a surface-channel or channel-junction device.

Fabrication of semiconductor structure having N-channel channel-junction field-effect transistor

This paper presents the performance of a buried channel MOSFET (BC-MOSFET) that uses the bulk region as the conducting channel in contrast with the surface channel of the conventional device. Normally-off characteristic has been realized with the p-type silicon gate and the ion-implanted n-channel layer. Fabricated short channel BC-MOSFETs with the gate lengths of 1-3 µ have shown a small shift of threshold voltage with changing the gate length or drain bias. These devices also have high carrier mobility of 750 cm2/v.s and high breakdown voltage compared with those of the conventional device. Minimum delay time of 180 ps was obtained with a 13 stage ring oscillator which was constructed with 1 µ BC-MOSFET.

M. Shinoda

Papers

A normally-off type buried channel MOSFET for VLSI circuits