Role of temperature on linearity and analog/RF performance merits of a negative capacitance FinFET

Abstract

Temperature plays a decisive role in semiconductor device performance and reliability analysis. The effect is more severe in a Negative Capacitance (NC) transistor, as the temperature modulates the ferroelectric polarization, implicitly included by the Landau coefficients (α, β, γ) in TCAD. In this paper, through TCAD simulations, the role of varying ambient temperature is investigated in the linearity and analog/RF merits of NC-FinFET. The varying temperature modulates the carrier mobility, the semiconductor bandgap, and the Landau parameter (α). We analyzed the analog/RF and linearity metrics, such as total gate capacitance (Cgg), transconductance (gm), unity gain cut-off frequency (fT), the transconductance-frequency product (TFP), gain-bandwidth product (GBP), higher-order transconductance (gm2 and gm3), voltage intercept points (VIP2 and VIP3), third-order power intercept and intermodulation points (IIP3 and IMD3), and 1 dB compression point (CP) using well-calibrated TCAD models. Our analysis reveals that these parameters are strongly dependent on temperature and the negative capacitance (NC) span (defined by using S-curve) shrinks with the rise in temperature. Finally, a source follower and three-stage ring oscillator are designed to test the frequency compatibility of the AC simulation for varying temperatures.