• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.44-48
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• 2008

Hole mobility characteristics of two representative biaxially strained SiGe/Si structures with high Ge contents are studied, They are single channel ($Si/Si_{1-x}Ge_x/Si$ substrate) and dual channel ($Si/Si_{1-y}Ge_y/Si_{1-x}Ge_x/Si$ substrate), where the former consists of a relaxed SiGe buffer layer with 60 % Ge content and a tensile-strained Si layer on top, and for the latter, a compressively strained SiGe layer is inserted between two layers, Owing to the hole mobility performance between a relaxed SiGe film and a compressive-strained SiGe film in the single channel and the dual channel, the hole mobility behaviors of two structures with respect to the Si cap layer thickness shows the opposite trend, Hole mobility increases with thicker Si cap layer for single channel structure, whereas it decreases with thicker Si cap layer for dual channel. This hole mobility characteristics could be easily explained by a simple capacitance model.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.113-114
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• 2007

Hole mobility characteristics of single surface channel and dual channel Si/SiGe structure are compared, where the former one consists of a relaxed SiGe buffer layer and a tensile strained Si layer on top, and for dual channel structure a compressively strained SiGe layer is inserted between them. Due to the difference of hole mobility enhancement factors of layers between them, hole mobility characteristics with respect to the Si cap thickness shows the opposite tend. Hole mobility increases with thicker Si cap for single channel structure, whereas it decreases with thicker Si cap for dual channel structure.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.264-275
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• 2008

Electron mobility has been investigated theoretically in undoped double-gate (DG) MOSFETs of different channel architectures: a relaxed-Si DG SOI, a strained-Si (sSi) DG SSOI (strained-Si-on-insulator, containing no SiGe layer), and a strained-Si DG SGOI (strained-Si-on-SiGe-on-insulator, containing a SiGe layer) at 300K. Electron mobility in the DG SSOI device exhibits high enhancement relative to the DG SOI. In the DG SGOI devices the mobility is strongly suppressed by the confinement of electrons in much narrower strained-Si layers, as well as by the alloy scattering within the SiGe layer. As a consequence, in the DG SGOI devices with thinnest strained-Si layers the electron mobility may drop below the level of the relaxed DG SOI and the mobility enhancement expected from the strained-Si devices may be lost.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.439-445
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• 2005

We introduce a strained-SiGe technology adopting different thicknesses of Si cap layers towards low power and high performance CMOS applications. By simply adopting 3 and 7 nm thick Si-cap layers in n-channel and p-channel MOSFETs, respectively, the transconductances and driving currents of both devices were enhanced by 7 to 37% and 6 to 72%. These improvements seemed responsible for the formation of a lightly doped retrograde high-electron-mobility Si surface channel in nMOSFETs and a compressively strained high-hole-mobility $Si_{0.8}Ge_{0.2}$ buried channel in pMOSFETs. In addition, the nMOSFET exhibited greatly reduced subthreshold swing values (that is, reduced standby power consumption), and the pMOSFET revealed greatly suppressed 1/f noise and gate-leakage levels. Unlike the conventional strained-Si CMOS employing a relatively thick (typically > 2 ${\mu}m$) $Si_xGe_{1-x}$ relaxed buffer layer, the strained-SiGe CMOS with a very thin (20 nm) $Si_{0.8}Ge_{0.2}$ layer in this study showed a negligible self-heating problem. Consequently, the proposed strained-SiGe CMOS design structure should be a good candidate for low power and high performance digital/analog applications.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.41 no.10
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• pp.1-7
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• 2004

In order to enhance the electron mobility in SOI n-MOSFET, we fabricated fully depletion(FD) n-MOSFET on the strained Si/relaxed SiGa/SiO$_2$/Si structure(strained Si/SGOI) formed by inserting SiGe layer between a buried oxide(BOX) layer and a top silicon layer. The summated thickness of the strained Si and relaxed SiGe was fixed by 12.8 nm and then the dependency of electron mobility on strained Si thickness was investigated. The electron mobility in the FD n-MOSFET fabricated on the strained Si/SGOI enhanced about 30-80% compared to the FD n-MOSFET fabricated on conventional SOI. However, the electron mobility decreased with the strained Si thickness although the inter-valley phonon scattering was reduced via the enhancement of the Ge mole fraction. This result is attributed to the increment of intra-valley phonon scattering in the n-channel 2-fold valley via the further electron confinement as the strained Si thickness was reduced.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.253-256
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• 2006

We propose a novel power metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) employing a strained-Si channel structure to improve the current drivability and on-resistance characteristic of the high-voltage MOSFET. A 20 nm thick strained-Si low field channel NMOSFET with a $0.75\;{\mu}m$ thick $Si_{0.8}Ge_{0.2}$ buffer layer improved the drive current by 20% with a 25% reduction in on-resistance compared with a conventional Si channel high-voltage NMOSFET, while suppressing the breakdown voltage and subthreshold slope characteristic degradation by 6% and 8%, respectively. Also, the strained-Si high-voltage NMOSFET improved the transconductance by 28% and 52% at the linear and saturation regimes.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2003.07b
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• pp.1065-1068
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• 2003

For the first time, high quality ultra-thin strained Si/SiGe on Insulator (SGOI) substrate with total SGOI thickness( $T_{Si}$ + $T_{SiGe}$) of 13 nm is developed to combine the device benefits of strained silicon and SOI. In the case of 6- 10 nm-thick top silicon, 100-110 % $I_{d,sat}$ and electron mobility increase are shown in long channel nFET devices. However, 20-30% reduction of $I_{d,sat}$ and electron mobility are observed with 3 nm top silicon for the same long channel device. These results clearly show that the FETs operates with higher performance due to the strain enhancement from the insertion of SiGe layer between the top silicon layer and the buried oxide(BOX) layer. The performance degradation of the extremely thin( 3 nm ) top Si device can be attributed to the scattering of the majority carriers at the interfaces.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.136-147
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• 2005

A theoretical design evaluation based on a hydrodynamic transport simulation of strained Si-SiGe on insulator (SSOI) type nMOSFETs is reported. Although, the net performance improvement is quite limited by the short channel effects, simulation results clearly show that the strained Si-SiGe type nMOSFETs are well-suited for gate lengths down to 20 nm. Simulation results show that the improvement in the transconductance with decreasing gate length is limited by the long-range Coulomb scattering. An influence of lateral and vertical diffusion of shallow dopants in the source/drain extension regions on the device performance (i.e., threshold voltage shift, subthreshold slope, current drivability and transconductance) is quantitatively assessed. An optimum layer thickness ($t_{si}$ of 5 and $t_{sg}$ of 10 nm) with shallow Junction depth (5-10 nm) and controlled lateral diffusion with steep doping gradient is needed to realize the sub-50 nm gate strained Si-SiGe type nMOSFETs.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.399-402
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• 2007

The effects of heat treatment on the electrical properties of strained-Si/SiGe-on-insulator (SGOI) devices were examined. We proposed the optimized heat treatment processes for improving the back interfacial electrical properties in SGOI-MOSFET. By applying the additional pre-RTA (rapid thermal annealing) before gate oxidation step and the post-RTA after source/drain dopant activation step, the electrical properties of strained-Si channel on $Si_{1-x}Ge_x$ layer were greatly improved, which resulting the improvement of the driving current, transconductance, and leakage current of SGOI-MOSFET.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.367-380
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• 2013

In this paper, an analytical threshold voltage model is developed for a short-channel double-material-gate (DMG) strained-silicon (s-Si) on silicon-germanium ($Si_{1-X}Ge_X$) MOSFET structure. The proposed threshold voltage model is based on the so called virtual-cathode potential formulation. The virtual-cathode potential is taken as minimum channel potential along the transverse direction of the channel and is derived from two-dimensional (2D) potential distribution of channel region. The 2D channel potential is formulated by solving the 2D Poisson's equation with suitable boundary conditions in both the strained-Si layer and relaxed $Si_{1-X}Ge_X$ layer. The effects of a number of device parameters like the Ge mole fraction, Si film thickness and gate-length ratio have been considered on threshold voltage. Further, the drain induced barrier lowering (DIBL) has also been analyzed for gate-length ratio and amount of strain variations. The validity of the present 2D analytical model is verified with ATLAS$^{TM}$, a 2D device simulator from Silvaco Inc.