MOSFET Breakdown
Lecture 6.5
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MF9
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Dr. Gargi Raina VIT Chennai
Narrow-Channel Effects
• Narrow-channel MOSFETs also exhibit typical characteristics which are not accounted
for by the conventional GCA analysis
• Most significant narrow-channel effect Actual threshold voltage of such a device is
larger than that predicted by the conventional threshold voltage formula
Cross-sectional view (across the channel) of a
narrow-channel MOSFET.
QNC Extra depletion charge due to narrow-channel effects
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• The oxide thickness in the channel region is tox, while the regions around the channel
are covered by a thickfield oxide (FOX).
• Since the gate electrode also overlaps with the field oxide, a relatively shallow depletion
region forms underneath this FOX-overlap area as well.
• Consequently, the gate voltage must also support this additional depletion charge in
order to establish the conducting channel.
• This effect is negligible in wider devices.
• For MOSFETs with small channel widths, however, the actual threshold voltage
increases as a result of this extra depletion charge.
• The additional contribution to the threshold voltage due to narrow-channel effects
can be modelled as:
where is an empirical parameter depending on the shape of the fringe depletion
region.
Assuming that the depletion region edges are modeled by quarter-circular arcs, for
example, the parameter K can be found as
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• In all cases, we recognize that the additional contribution to V0 is proportional to
(xdm / W).
• The amount of threshold voltage increase becomes significant only for devices which
have a channel width W of the same order of magnitude as xdm .
• Finally, note that for minimum-geometry MOSFETs which have a small channel
length and a small channel width, the threshold voltage variations due to short-
and narrow-channel effects may tend to cancel each other out.
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