Impact of Gamma-Ray Radiation on DC and RF Performance of 10-nm Bulk N-Channel FinFETs

Abstract

In this article, the impact of gamma-ray radiation on DC and RF response of 10-nm bulk n-channel FinFETs is investigated. Firstly, the radiation tolerance of these devices under DC measurement conditions is reported as various layout level device parameters, such as the gate length (L <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">G</sub> ), number of fins (N <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">FIN</sub> ), and number of fingers (N <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">FINGER</sub> ) are scaled. Then for the first time, the impact of gamma-ray radiation on small-signal RF response of the 10-nm bulk FinFETs is reported, which includes some of the RF figures-of-merit (FOM), such as, the input transconductance, intrinsic current gain, intrinsic voltage gain, and unilateral power gain. Furthermore, the effect of device geometry scaling on maximum oscillation frequency, f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">MAX</sub> , degradation due to gamma-ray radiation is reported. DC results show that long channel devices with small N <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">FIN</sub> and large N <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">FINGER</sub> are least impacted by gamma-ray radiation as opposed to short channel devices with large N <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">FIN</sub> and small N <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">FINGER</sub> . The RF results show that gamma-ray radiation causes major degradation (~ 40%) in f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">MAX</sub> , while the cut-off frequency, f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</sub> remains mostly unchanged. Finally, an empirical model is developed to predict the degradation in f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">MAX</sub> with changing device geometries and gamma-ray radiation dose.