A TCAD-Based Methodology to Model the Site-Binding Charge at ISFET/Electrolyte Interfaces

Abstract

We propose a new approach to describe in commercial TCAD the chemical reactions that occur at dielectric/electrolyte interface and make the ion sensitive FET (ISFET) sensitive to pH. The accuracy of the proposed method is successfully verified against the available experimental data. We demonstrate the usefulness of the method by performing, for the first time in a commercial TCAD environment, a full 2-D analysis of ISFET operation, and a comparison between threshold voltage and drain current differential sensitivities in the linear and saturation regimes. The method paves the way to accurate and efficient ISFET modeling with standard TCAD tools.