Effects of gate notching profile defect on performance characteristics of short-channel NMOSFET with channel length of 0.12 mum

In this letter, we report the effects of gate notching on the performance characteristics of short-channel NMOS transistor with the gate oxide thickness of 32 /Aring/. The significant gate-notching defect into channel region brings about the serious degradation of such transistor performances as transconductance (G/m/) characteristic and subthreshold swing (S/t/), resulting in increases of threshold voltage (V/TH/) and leakage current (I/OFF/) and the considerable reduction of drive current (I/ON/). We will suggest the local thickening of gate oxide as a main mechanism of its effects and show that lack of gate-to-source/drain extension (SDE) overlap may be an additional reason for the degradation of I/ON/ with increasing the notch depth.