Computational Study of Temperature Effects on MOSFET Channel Material Benchmarking

Temperature (T) effects on MOSFET channel material benchmarking are explored using atomistic quantum and Monte Carlo simulation. Performance metrics such as OFF-current, maximum supply voltage (VDD,max), and effective inverter drive current (Ieff) for novel channel materials (InGaAs and Ge nMOS) are compared with those of Si nMOS at 27 °C vs. 101 °C. For novel channel materials, leakages from source-to-drain or bandto-band tunneling may become significant, while their T-dependence is much lower than in thermal leakage. This may have significant impact on the benchmarking analysis results, such as the increased VDD,max of novel channel materials at high T, which allows one to exploit the boosted Ieff in a wider range of supply voltage with leakage power still matching Si. This illustrates the importance of considering operating T's of actual circuits when assessing individual transistors, especially for novel channel materials.