Quantum-mechanical effects and gate leakage current of nanoscale n-type FinFETs: A 2d simulation study

This paper simulates a kind of new sub-50 nm n-type double gate MOS nanotransistors by solving coupled Poisson-Schrödinger equations in a self-consistent manner with a finite element method, and presents a systematic simulation-based study on quantum-mechanical effects, gate leakage current of FinFETs. The simulation results indicate that the deviation from the classical model becomes more important as the gate oxide, gate length and Fin channel width becomes thinner and the Fin channel doping increases. Gate tunneling current density reduces with the body thickness decreasing. Excessive scaling increases the gate current below Fin thickness of 5 nm. The gate current can be dramatically reduced beyond 10¹⁷ cm⁻³ with the Fin body doping increasing. In order to understand the influence of electron confinement, quantum mechanical simulation results are also compared with the results from the classical approach. Our simulation results indicate that quantum mechanical simulation is essential for the realistic optimization of the FinFET structure.