Novel III-V compound semiconductor technologies for low power digital logic applications

Millar, David Alan John (2018) Novel III-V compound semiconductor technologies for low power digital logic applications. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

As silicon (Si) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology continues to scale into the 10 nm node, chip power consumption is approaching 200 W/cm2 and any further increase is unsustainable. Incorporating III-V compound semiconductor n-type devices into future CMOS generations could allow for the the reduction in supply voltage, and therefore, power consumption, while simultaneously improving on-state performance. The advanced state of Si CMOS places stringent demands on III-V devices, however: the current 14 nm Si tri-gate devices employ high aspect ratio, densely spaced fins which serve to significantly increase current per chip surface area.

III-V devices need to significantly out perform state of the art Si devices in order to merit their disruptive incorporation into the well established CMOS process. This necessitates that they too exploit the vertical dimension. To this end, this thesis reports on the fabrication, measurement and analysis of high aspect ratio junctionless InGaAs FinFETs.

The junctionless architecture was first demonstrated in 2010 and was shown to circumvent pro- hibitive fabrication challenges for devices with ultra short gate lengths. This work investigated the impact of fin width on both the on and off-state performance of 200 nm gate length devices, with nominal fin widths of 10, 15 and 20 nm.

Excellent subthreshold performance was demonstrated, with the narrowest fin width exhibiting a minimum subthreshold swing (SS) of 73 mV/Dec., and an average SS of 80 mV/Dec. over two decades of current. A maximum on-current, Ion, of 80.51 μA/cm2 was measured at a gate overdrive of 0.5 V from an off-state current, Ioff, of 100 nA/cm2 and a drain voltage, Vd, of 0.5 V, with current normalised by gated perimeter. This is competitive with other III-V junctionless devices at similar gate lengths. With current normalised to base fin width, however, Ion increases to 371.8 μA/cm2, which is a record value among equivalently normalised non-planar III-V junctionless devices at any gate length. This technology, therefore, clearly demonstrates the feasibility of incorporating scaled, etched InGaAs fins into future logic generations.

Perhaps the greatest bottleneck to the incorporation of III-V compounds into future CMOS technology nodes, however, is the lack of a suitable III-V PMOS candidate: co-integrating different material systems onto a common substate incurs great fabrication complexity, and therefore, cost. III-V antimonides, however, have recently emerged as promising candidates for III-V PMOS and exhibit the highest bulk electron mobility of all III-Vs in addition to a hole mobility second only to germanium.

InGaSb ternary compounds have been shown to offer the best combined performance for electrons and holes in the same material, and as such, have the potential to the enable the most simplistic incarnation of III-V CMOS; provided, of course, that is possible to form a gate stack to both device polarities with sufficient electrical properties. To date, however, there has been no investigation into the high-k dielectric interface to InGaSb. To this end, this thesis presents results of the first investigation into the impact of in-situ H2 plasma exposure on the electrical properties of the p/n-In0.3Ga0.7Sb-Al2O3 interface.

The parameter space was explored systematically in terms of H2 plasma power and exposure time, and further, the impact of impact of in-situ trimethylaluminium (TMA) pre-cleaning and annealing in forming gas was assessed. Metal oxide semiconductor capacitors (MOSCAPs) were fabricated subsequent to H2 plasma processing and Al2O3 deposition, and the correspond- ing capacitance-voltage and conductance-voltage measurements were analysed both qualita- tively and quantitatively via the simulation of an equivalent circuit model.
X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis of samples processed as part of the plasma power series revealed a combination of ex-situ HCl cleaning and in-situ H2 plasma exposure to completely remove In and Sb sub oxides, with the Ga-O content reduced to Ga-O:InGaSb <0.1. The optimal process, which included ex-situ HCl surface cleaning, in-situ H2 plasma and TMA pre-cleaning, and a post gate metal forming gas anneal, was unequivocally demonstrated to yield a fully unpinnned MOS interface with both n and p-type MOSCAPs explicitly demonstrating a genuine minority carrier response. Interface state and border trap densities were extracted, with a minimum Dit of 1.73x1012 cm-2 eV-1 located at ~110 meV below the conduction band edge and peak border trap densities approximately aligned with the valence and conduction band edges of 3x1019 cm-3 eV-1 and 6.5x1019 cm-3 eV-1 respectively.

These results indicate that the optimal gate stack process is indeed applicable to both p and n- type InGaSb MOSFETs, and therefore, represent a critical advancement towards achieving high performance III-V CMOS.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: T Technology > T Technology (General); T Technology > TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Colleges/Schools: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering
• Funder's Name: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
• Supervisor's Name: Thayne, Professor Iain
• Date of Award: 2018
• Depositing User: Dr David Millar
• Unique ID: glathesis:2018-70945
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 09 May 2019 10:41
• Last Modified: 16 Jul 2019 15:41
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/70945