A comparison of quantum-mechanical capacitance-voltage simulators

Abstract

We have systematically compared the results of an extensive ensemble of the most advanced available quantum-mechanical capacitance-voltage (C-V) simulation and analysis packages for a range of metal-oxide-semiconductor device parameters. While all have similar trends accounting for polysilicon depletion and quantum-mechanical confinement, quantitatively, there is a difference of up to 20% in the calculated accumulation capacitance for devices with ultrathin gate dielectrics. This discrepancy leads to large inaccuracies in the values of dielectric thickness extracted from capacitance measurements and illustrates the importance of consistency during C-V analysis and the need to fully report how such analysis is done.