From MOSFETs to Ambipolar Transistors: A Static DeFET Inverter Cell for SOI

Ambipolar transistors have emerged recently and are presented on device and cell level. The ability to conduct both electrons and holes is often provided by the use of silicon nanowires, carbon nanotubes or similar gate-all-around topologies. Large scale integration of these devices is difficult due to the complex manufacturing process. In this paper we present an ambipolar “Dehancement Mode Field Effect Transistor (DeFET)” which is an electrostatically doped planar device. After introducing the device itself, we show its performance by analyzing it in the TCAD simulation of a digital inverter configuration. We present characteristics of our full output swing CMOS-style inverter and compare it to an inverter which consists of MOSFETs from a similar 180 nm SOI technology. The bias for the electrostatic doping of the DeFETs is provided by the cell supply voltages, therefore no additional voltage has to be provided to reconfigure our ambipolar DeFET as n-type or p-type with performance similar to 180 nm SOI MOSFETs.