Statistical Analysis of Metal Gate Workfunction Variability, Process Variation, and Random Dopant Fluctuation in Nano-CMOS Circuits

Abstract

This work for the first time estimates the influences of the intrinsic parameter fluctuations consisting of metal gate workfunction fluctuation (WKF), process variation effect (PVE) and random dopant fluctuation (RDF) on 16-nm-gate planar metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) and circuits. The WKF and RDF dominate the threshold voltage fluctuation; however, the WKF brings less impact on the gate capacitance due to the screening effect of the inversion layer. The fluctuation of timing characteristics depends on the threshold voltage fluctuation, and therefore is proportional to the trend of threshold voltage fluctuation. For an amplifier circuit, the high-frequency characteristics, the circuit gain, the 3dB bandwidth, the unity-gain bandwidth power, and the power-added efficiency, are explored consequently. Similar to the trend of the cutoff frequency, the PVE and RDF dominate both the device and circuits characteristic fluctuations due to the significant gate capacitance fluctuations and the WKF is less important at this simulation scenario. The extensive study assesses the fluctuations on circuit performance and reliability, which can in turn be used to optimize nanoscale MOSFET and circuits.