Subthreshold conduction

About: Subthreshold conduction is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 6343 publications have been published within this topic receiving 131957 citations. The topic is also known as: Subthreshold leakage.

Film thickness constraints for manufacturable strained silicon CMOS

Abstract: This paper studies the effect of the strained silicon thickness on the characteristics of strained silicon MOSFETs on SiGe virtual substrates. NMOSFETs were fabricated on strained silicon substrates with various strained silicon thicknesses, both above and below the strained silicon critical thickness. The low field electron mobility and subthreshold characteristics of the devices were measured. Low field electron mobility is increased by about 1.8 times on all wafers and is not significantly degraded on any of the samples, even for a strained silicon thickness far greater than the critical thickness. From the subthreshold characteristics, however, it is shown that the off-state leakage current is greatly increased for the devices on the wafers with a strained silicon thickness that exceeds the critical thickness. The mechanism of the leakage was examined by using photon emission microscopy. Strong evidence is shown that the leakage mechanism is source/drain electrical shorting caused by enhanced dopant diffusion near misfit dislocations.

Semianalytical Model of the Subthreshold Current in Short-Channel Junctionless Symmetric Double-Gate Field-Effect Transistors

Abstract: A 2-D semianalytical solution for the electrostatic potential valid for junctionless symmetric double-gate field-effect transistors in subthreshold regime is proposed, which is based on the parabolic approximation for the potential and removes previous limitations. Based on such a solution, a semi-analytical expression for the current is derived. The potential and current models are validated through comparisons with TCAD simulations and are used to evaluate relevant short-channel effect parameters, such as threshold roll-off, drain-induced barrier lowering, and inverse subthreshold slope. The implications of different possible definitions of threshold voltage, either based on the potential in the channel or on a fixed current level, are discussed. Finally, a fully analytical simplification for the current is suggested, which can be used in compact models for circuit simulations.

Rigorous analytic solution for the drain current of undoped symmetric dual-gate MOSFETs

Abstract: We describe a new drain current model for nanoscale undoped-body symmetric dual-gate MOSFETs based on a fully consistent physical description. The model consists on a single analytic equation that includes both drift and diffusion contributions. It is built on the basis of the potentials at the surface and at the center of the silicon film evaluated at the source and drain ends. The derivation is completely rigorous and is based on a procedure previously enunciated for long-channel bulk SOI MOSFETs. The expression is a continuous description valid for all bias conditions, from subthreshold to strong inversion and from linear to saturation operation. The validity of the model has been ascertained by extensive comparison to exact numerical simulations. The results attest to the excellent accuracy of this formulation.

Low voltage CMOS logic circuit with threshold voltage control

Abstract: A MOSFET circuit achieving high speed operation and low power consumption for a wide supply voltage range. MOSFET circuits are connected between a low threshold voltage CMOS circuit and a supply voltage and ground, as a power controller for switching power supply in response to sleep/active modes. High threshold voltage MOSFETs in the MOSFET circuits are gate biased by low threshold voltage MOSFETs, thereby preventing a current from flowing across the backgate terminal and the source terminal.

Vibrational resonance in neuron populations

Abstract: In this paper different topologies of populations of FitzHugh–Nagumo neurons have been introduce to investigate the effect of high-frequency driving on the response of neuron populations to a subthreshold low-frequency signal. We show that optimal amplitude of high-frequency driving enhances the response of neuron populations to a subthreshold low-frequency input and the optimal amplitude dependences on the connection among the neurons. By analyzing several kinds of topology (i.e., random and small world) different behaviors have been observed. Several topologies behave in an optimal way with respect to the range of low-frequency amplitude leading to an improvement in the stimulus response coherence, while others with respect to the maximum values of the performance index. However, the best results in terms of both the suitable amplitude of high-frequency driving and high stimulus response coherence have been obtained when the neurons have been connected in a small-world topology.