3-D non-isothermal particle-based device simulator for p-type MOSFETs

A self-consistent electrothermal particle-based device simulator for the study of self-heating effects in p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) based in silicon is developed and presented. The tool utilizes the Ensemble Monte Carlo (EMC) method to perform the charge transport and resolves the Phonon Energy Balance (PEB) equations for both acoustic and optical phonons to obtain the non-isothermal temperature profile for each phonon mode. The EMC and the PEB modules are coupled self-consistently so that the lattice temperature is used to adjust the carriers’ scattering rates and, thus, enabling the device current capability degradation to be accounted for. The developed tool proved to be suitable for sub-100 nm device simulations, and it was used to perform case study simulations of 24-nm channel length bulk and fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) MOSFETs. Electrothermal simulations of bulk and FD-SOI devices provided both acoustic and optical phonon temperature profiles across the transistor structure, the heat generation map, the device power dissipation, and the magnitude of the current degradation due to self-heating. These results are in agreement with the expected behavior and literature reports. Simulations employing the Joule Heating model were also performed for comparison. The particle-based character of the tool was also explored for the simulation of the interplay between self-heating and charged traps at multiple positions in the channel.