Vlsi Design (Scaling)
Vlsi Design (Scaling)
Contents
➢Moore’s Law
➢Why Scaling?
➢Types of Scaling
➢Short channel Effects
➢Narrow Width Effects
2
Moore’s Law
➢ No. of transistors on a chip doubled every 18 to 24 months.
➢ Semiconductor technology will double its effectiveness every 18 months.
Advantages of scaling:
1. More transistors can be integrated per chip; means more capability
2. Improvement in speed (Due to decrease in channel length L, and hence
due to decrease in transit times)
3. Increase in current (Hence improved parasitic capacitance charging time)
4. Improved ‘throughput’ of the chip
Disadvantages:
1. Short channel effects
2. Complex process technology
3. Parasitic effects dominate over transistor effects
Short Channel Effects
When MOSFET is called Short Channel Device?
• Short-channel case :
• Depletion regions of the source and drain are large compared to the channel length.
• The regions are trapezoidal in shape and channel length would be effectively reduced.
• Drain and source diffusions induce a significant amount of charge in bulk. As a result, long
channel Vt overestimates the depletion charge supported by gate.
• the threshold voltage is smaller in short-channel case as compared to long one.
• In small geometry device the drain current is controlled by 2-D electric field
vector. One typical condition which is due to 2D current flow is called
subthreshold conduction.
• if Vgs < Vto, the electrons in channel face a potential barrier that blocks the
flow.
• Increasing gate voltage reduces the barrier and current flow under the
effect of electric field.
• Vgs < Vto and Vds is increased then potential barrier in the channel
decreases. This is known as drain induced potential barrier lowering
(DIBL).
• This current is called subthreshold current and GCA can not model this .
Punch through :
• In small geometry when drain bias is large, the depletion regions of drain
can extend further towards source.
The drift velocity of the carriers increases as the electric field increases.
However, this does not happen continually.
At some higher electric field, the carrier velocity saturates as illustrated in
Figure. This phenomenon is known as velocity saturation.
This velocity of the carriers saturate because at high electric field, the carriers
undergo collisions and lose the extra energy gained due to the increased
electric field.
The electric field beyond which the carriers start to saturate is called critical
electric field (Ec). The critical electric field typically varies from 5V/μm to
7.5V/μm
Hot Carrier effects:
• Hot electron effects are due to High electric field within the device.
• In scaling, device dimensions and supply voltages are not scaled down in
proportional way.
• After gaining high KE in high field carriers becomes hot and they may be
injected into the gate oxide. This results in permanent change in oxide-interface
charge distribution.
• This effect is more prominent when Vds is large. The electrons arriving at Si-
SiO2 interface with high KE are able to surmount the surface potential barrier
and injected into the oxide.
• The damage caused by hot carriers affects the transistor characteristics and
reduces the performance.