Increase in the Random Dopant Induced Threshold Fluctuations and Lowering in Sub-100 nm MOSFETs Due to Quantum Effects: A 3-D Density-Gradient Simulation Study

In this paper, we present a detailed simulation study of the influence of quantum mechanical effects in the inversion layer on random dopant induced threshold voltage fluctuations and lowering in sub-100 nm MOSFETs. The simulations have been performed using a three-dimensional (3-D) implementation of the density gradient (DG) formalism incorporated in our established 3-D atomistic simulation approach. This results in a self-consistent 3-D quantum mechanical picture, which implies not only the vertical inversion layer quantization but also the lateral confinement effects related to current filamentation in the “valleys” of the random potential fluctuations. We have shown that the net result of including quantum mechanical effects, while considering statistical dopant fluctuations, is an increase in both threshold voltage fluctuations and lowering. At the same time, the random dopant induced threshold voltage lowering partially compensates for the quantum mechanical threshold voltage shift in aggressively scaled MOSFETs with ultrathin gate oxides.