Benchmarking of FinFET, Nanosheet, and Nanowire FET Architectures for Future Technology Nodes
Daniel Nagy, Gabriel Espiñeira, Guillermo Indalecio, Antonio J. García‐Loureiro, K. Kálna, Natalia Seoane
Abstract
Nanosheet (NS) and nanowire (NW) FET architectures scaled to a gate length (L <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">G</sub> ) of 16 nm and below are benchmarked against equivalent FinFETs. The device performance is predicted using a 3D finite element drift-diffusion/Monte Carlo simulation toolbox with integrated 2D Schrödinger equation based quantum corrections. The NS FET is a viable replacement for the FinFET in high performance (HP) applications when scaled down to L <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">G</sub> of 16 nm offering a larger on-current (I <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ON</sub> ) and slightly better sub-threshold characteristics. Below L <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">G</sub> of 16 nm, the NW FET becomes the most promising architecture offering an almost ideal sub-threshold swing, the smallest off-current (I <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">OFF</sub> ), and the largest I <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ON</sub> /I <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">OFF</sub> ratio out of the three architectures. However, the NW FET suffers from early ION saturation with the increasing gate bias that can be tackled by minimizing interface roughness and/or by optimisation of a doping profile in the device body.