Simulation of electrical characteristic fluctuation in 16-nm FinFETs' and circuits

In this work, we have assessed the effects of intrinsic parameter fluctuations, WKF, PVE and RDF on electrical characteristics of nanoscale FinFETs' and circuits using an experimentally calibrated 3D coupled device-circuit analyzing technique. ¿Vth for n- and p-type transistor are affected mostly by RDF, except for p-type planar MOSFETs, in which ¿Vth is governed by WKF because of the larger deviation of metal gate workfunction. PVE and RDF dominate the high frequency response due to the direct impact of gate capacitance variations and vsat variations on AC parameters. Effects of WKF in high frequency characteristics may be neglected in this scenario. In the timing characteristics, similar to ¿Vth, RDF rules the delay time fluctuations, except for tLH fluctuation of planar MOSFETs, which is related to PMOS characteristics and dominated by WKF. RDF dominates SNM fluctuation of SRAM, due to the larger ¿Vth of n-type transistors, where the SNM fluctuation of FinFET SRAM induced by RDF is about 2.3 and 4.4 times larger than WKF and PVE. The extensive study evaluates the fluctuations on device/circuit performance and reliability, which can, in turn, be used to optimize nanoscale FETs' circuits.