2022 IEEE International Conference of Electron Devices Society Kolkata Chapter (EDKCON), 26-27 November, 2022, Kolkata, India 75

Doping induced threshold voltage and ION/IOFF ratio

modulation in surrounding gate MOSFET for
analog applications
2022 IEEE International Conference of Electron Devices Society Kolkata Chapter (EDKCON) | 978-1-6654-7205-0/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/EDKCON56221.2022.10032940

Amit Das Binod Kumar Kanaujia

School of Computational and Integrative Sciences, School of Computational and Integrative Sciences,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi-110067, India. New Delhi-110067, India.
[email protected] [email protected]

S.S. Deswal Sonam Rewari R. S. Gupta

Department of Electrical and Department of Electronics and Department of Electronics and
Electronics Engineering, Maharaja Communication Engineering, Communication Engineering,
Agrasen Institute of Technology, Delhi Technological University, Maharaja Agrasen Institute of
110086, New Delhi, India. New Delhi-110042, India. Technology,
[email protected] [email protected] New Delhi-110086, India.
[email protected]

Abstract— This paper gives a detailed and comprehensive current to off-current ratio (ION/IOFF). Both these parameters
insight for the simulation based investigation of doping have their own significance in defining the capabilities of
induced modulation of the threshold voltage and ION/IOFF ratio the device for various applications. This work helps in
in a silicon based surrounding gate metal oxide semiconductor understanding and explaining that how the doping pattern
field effect transistor (SG-MOSFET). This work explores the
can modulate the threshold voltage and ION/IOFF ratio of the
two important DC characteristics i.e. threshold voltage and
ION/IOFF ratio which are important to investigate the analog device. A low value of threshold voltage[7] is generally
performance of MOSFET. The current study shows that the desirable because it is the minimum gate voltage required to
low doping of source, channel and drain results in low turn-on the device. So, Vt can be considered as an offset
threshold voltage but also, decreases the ION/IOFF ratio. voltage whose value must be low. A low threshold voltage
Interestingly, keeping the drain doping higher than the source indicates lesser overdrive voltage and it is always desirable
doping improves the threshold voltage but degrades the to have less threshold voltage in short channel devices since
ION/IOFF ratio. The maximum change in threshold voltage and these devices operate at low power ratings. On-current to
ION/IOFF ratio is approximately 430 mV and 106 times off-current ratio[8]–[10] signifies the switching
respectively which is obtained when the doping of the source,
characteristics of the device which indicates that how
channel and drain are changed simultaneously by a factor of
1:106. The doping of source, channel and drain can rapidly a device can switch from on-state to off-state or vice
significantly affect the threshold voltage and ION/IOFF ratio in versa. A high ION/IOFF ratio is desirable in digital switching
short channel devices which necessitates the need of doping and a few high frequency applications.
optimization to control both these characteristics.
Fig. 1 shows the effect of biasing on the energy bands of
Keywords— ATLAS TCAD, doping, off-current, on-current, a MOSFET[9] where Fig. 1(a) shows the effect of gate bias
surrounding gate MOSFET, threshold voltage. and Fig. 1(b) shows the effect of drain bias. Increasing the
gate voltage enables channel formation and as a result,
I. INTRODUCTION charge carriers start moving from the source to drain
Field effect transistors have many practical applications because of lowering of the potential hill across the junction.
and advantages which made it popular in the recent Increasing the drain voltage makes the drain junction more
decades[1]–[5]. The latest advancement in technology has reverse biased and hence the bands around the drain
led to the improvement in its device structure and junction moves downward resulting in flow of more charge
fabrication process. SG-MOSFET being the most widely carriers from the source to drain. Many authors have
used variant of MOSFET can be used for numerous discussed the concept of threshold voltage modeling and
important applications[3], [6]. A basic variant of SG- ION/IOFF ratio in the past but the dependency of these two
MOSFET has been considered to study the doping induced parameters on the doping profile have not been discussed
modulation of two important parameters (essential for much in details [11]–[16]. To study the doping induced
analog applications) i.e., threshold voltage (Vt) and on- modulation in a systematic and diagrammatic approach, the

978-1-6654-7205-0/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE

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 2022 IEEE International Conference of Electron Devices Society Kolkata Chapter (EDKCON), 26-27 November, 2022, Kolkata, India 76

technique with a large convergence time. The different

parameters of the device are given in the Table I. Fig. 2(c)
shows the calibration of our device with the experimental
work[18] which shows a close agreement between the both.

TABLE I
STRUCTURAL PARAMETERS OF SG-MOSFET

Parameters Value
Channel length 30 nm
Channel radius 10 nm
Work function Φgate
(ϕgate) 4.8eV (WSi2)/5eV(Co)/5.1eV(Au)
1st part 1*1010 cm-3
nd
Channel doping 2 part 1*1010 cm-3
rd
(p-type) 3 part 1*1012 – 1*1018 cm-3
th
4 part 1*1015 – 1*1018 cm-3
st
1 part 1*1012 – 1*1018 cm-3
nd
Source doping 2 part 1*1015 cm-3
rd
(n-type) 3 part 1*1012 – 1*1018 cm-3
Fig. 1. Effect of the (a) gate voltage (VGS) and (b) drain voltage (VDS) on th
4 part 1*1018 cm-3
the energy bands (conduction and valence band) in a conventional st
MOSFET. 1 part 1*1012 – 1*1018 cm-3
nd
Drain doping 2 part 1*1015 – 1*1018 cm-3
paper has been further divided into four subsections with (n-type) rd
3 part 1*1012 – 1*1018 cm-3
each subsection revealing some interesting pattern in the th
4 part 1*1018 cm-3
threshold voltage and ION/IOFF ratio modulated by the
Biasing VGS = (0-1)V VDS=0.5V
doping of the source, channel and drain.
Oxide layer
II. DEVICE DESIGN AND SIMULATION 3 nm
thickness(tox)
Fig. 2(a) and 2(b) shows the 3D (three dimensional) and
Oxide
2D (two dimensional) view of SG-MOSFET respectively. 30 nm
length(Lox)
The whole bar of the semiconductor is made up of silicon
and the gate dielectric used is silicon dioxide (SiO2). Work
function of the gate is 5.1 eV. VDS=1 V
-6 tox=13 nm
10
LG=50nm
NCh=2*1015/cm3
Drain Current (A)

10-7 NS=ND=1021/cm3

10-8

10-9

Fig. 2. (a) 3-D view and, (b) 2-D view of the investigated SG-MOSFET. 10-10 Simulation
Experimental
All the simulations have been performed on the latest
10-11
version of ATLAS TCAD[17]. Different models have been -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0
used to incorporate the various effects in the SG-MOSFET (c) Gate Voltage (VGS: Volts)
such as Lombardi CVT model which is a carrier mobility
Fig. 2. (c) Calibration of SG-MOSFET with the experimental data.
model, SRH model which is a recombination model,
CONMOB model which is a concentration dependent III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
mobility model and FLDMOB model which is a field
dependent mobility model. The complex multi-dimensional The impact of varying the doping of source, drain and
differential equations have been solved by using NEWTON channel has a visible effect on threshold voltage and
GUMMEL method in the simulator which is a powerful ION/IOFF ratio. Thus, doping modulates the threshold voltage

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 2022 IEEE International Conference of Electron Devices Society Kolkata Chapter (EDKCON), 26-27 November, 2022, Kolkata, India 77

and ION/IOFF ratio to some extent. This section briefly

describes and explains the principle behind the simulated
results obtained in the different subsections. Here notation
for doping is as follows: x_y_z refers to the doping of
source (1*10x/cm3), channel (1*10y/cm3), drain (1*10z/cm3)
in the same order and S_C_D refers to the source, channel
and drain respectively.
A. Increasing the source and drain doping at same rate
Fig. 4. (a)Threshold voltage and, (b) ION/IOFF ratio variation at different
The variation in the doping of source and drain at an doping in SG-MOSFET.
equal rate will affect the threshold voltage and ION/IOFF ratio
keeping the channel doping constant[13], [19]. The
depletion layer width across an abrupt junction is doping
dependent and varies inversely with the square root of
doping [10]. Increasing the doping of both source and drain
decreases the overall depletion layer width on both the
source-channel and drain channel junctions. This reduction
in the depletion layer width increases the effective channel
length. So, more gate voltage will be required to form the
channel and thus increasing the threshold voltage. This
principle can be understood visually in Fig. 3 which Fig. 5. ION and IOFF variation at different doping in SG-MOSFET.
.

explains the effect of doping on the depletion layer width in

B. Increasing the drain doping
an abrupt pn junction.
Doping of drain can significantly affect the threshold
voltage in short channel devices when compared with the
long channel devices when the source and drain doping are
increased at an unequal rate (doping of the channel remains
constant). A reference doping has been selected for this
subsection: source doping: 1015 /cm3, channel doping: 1010
/cm3, drain doping: 1015/cm3. Drain doping is increased
from the reference doping. Both threshold voltage and
ION/IOFF ratio decreases with the increased drain doping.
There are two junctions mainly: source-channel junction
and drain-channel junction but when drain voltage (VDS>0)
is applied, drain-channel junction becomes more reverse
Fig. 3. Diagram showing the depletion layer width dependency on doping. biased than the source-channel junction. Drain is highly
doped than the channel. As the drain doping keeps on
A large threshold voltage can be seen at high doping of increasing, maximum part of depletion layer shifts on the
source and drain. So, the doping of source and drain must channel side. Whole depletion layer keeps on penetrating
be kept low to obtain a smaller threshold voltage which is inside the channel with the increased doping of drain and as
desirable. Fig. 4(a) shows the threshold voltage variation a result, effective channel length decreases[9]. Hence,
whereas Fig. 4(b) shows the variation of ION/IOFF ratio threshold voltage decreases with the increased drain doping.
when the doping of the drain and source are varied at an This principle is diagrammatically described in the Fig. 6
equal rate. A large number of charge carriers will be which shows the effect of drain doping on the effective
flowing across the channel with the increasing doping of channel length.
source and drain[9]. This increases the flow of charge
carriers across the channel which increases the on-current Since the source doping remains unchanged, therefore
but it also increases the leakage of charge carriers in the on-current remains almost constant because it mostly
absence of gate voltage. So, both the on-current and off- depends on the charge carriers coming from the source
current increases with the increasing doping of source and under the influence of applied voltage. Off-current keeps
drain at an equal rate but the rate of change of on-current is increasing with the increased drain doping because of the
higher than that of off-current. So, ION/IOFF ratio increases reduction in the effective channel length which increases
with the increasing doping of source and drain. Higher on- the leakage of charge carriers. The magnitude of off-current
current results in high conductivity which is desirable in is smaller than that of the on-current. Hence, ION/IOFF ratio
different analog applications whereas high ION/IOFF is decreases with the increased drain doping. Fig. 7(a) and
desirable in high frequency RF applications[5]. Fig. 5 7(b) shows the variation of threshold voltage and ION/IOFF
shows the variation of on-current and off-current when the ratio when the doping of drain is increased from the
doping of the drain and source are varied at an equal rate. reference doping.

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 2022 IEEE International Conference of Electron Devices Society Kolkata Chapter (EDKCON), 26-27 November, 2022, Kolkata, India 78

decreasing at both the junctions as the doping increases.

Hence, the effective channel length increases. So, threshold
voltage is higher at high doping of source, drain and
channel. This phenomenon of threshold voltage can be
understood logically in terms of its primary definition.
When the doping of channel is increasing, then more gate
voltage will be needed to form a channel by depleting the
holes[10], [20]. Drain current keeps on increasing with the
increase in doping due to large number of charge carriers.
High doping of source contributes large number of charge
carriers which keeps on increasing with the increased
source doping. So, ION/IOFF ratio increases when the source,
channel and drain doping are increased at an equal rate. Fig.
9(a) and 9(b) shows the variation of threshold voltage and
Fig. 6. Diagram showing the effect of drain doping on effective channel
length. ION/IOFF ratio when the doping of drain, channel and source
are increased at an equal rate.

Fig. 7. (a) Threshold voltage and (b) ION/IOFF ratio at different doping in
SG-MOSFET. Fig. 9. (a) Threshold voltage and (b) ION/IOFF ratio at different doping in
SG-MOSFET.
C. Increasing the source/channel/drain doping at same rate
D. Varying the channel doping
Doping variations in the source, channel and drain
Channel doping (drain and source doping are kept
affects both the threshold voltage and the ION/IOFF ratio[8] in
constant) affects the flow of charge carriers and hence
SG-MOSFET [13], [19] when the source, channel and drain
affects the threshold voltage and ION/IOFF ratio. A reference
doping are increased at an equal rate. The doping of source,
doping has been selected for this subsection: source doping:
drain and channel is kept same but it must not be confused
1018 /cm3, channel doping: 1018 /cm3, drain doping: 1018
with junction-less transistors. Here, source and drain is n-
/cm3. When the doping of the channel is decreased, less gate
type semiconductor whereas the body or substrate is of p-
voltage is required for the channel formation which implies
type semiconductor. Fig. 8 diagrammatically explains the
a reduction in the threshold voltage. This principle is
effect of increasing the doping of source, channel and drain
diagrammatically described in the Fig. 10. Fig. 11(a) and
at an equal rate.
11(b) shows the variation of threshold voltage and ION/IOFF
ratio when the doping of channel is decreased from the
reference doping level in SG-MOSFET.

Fig. 8. Diagram showing the effect of doping variation of source, channel

and drain at an equal rate on the effective channel length.

Threshold voltage and ION/IOFF ratio both increases with

Fig. 10. Diagram showing the effect of channel doping on effective
the increased doping. The depletion layer width keeps on channel length.

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 2022 IEEE International Conference of Electron Devices Society Kolkata Chapter (EDKCON), 26-27 November, 2022, Kolkata, India 79

because less voltage is required to turn-on the device and

ION/IOFF ratio decreases because off-current also increases
making the overall ION/IOFF ratio decreases with the
increasing VDS. Fig. 15 shows the electron density and the
corresponding density lines at different ϕgate. Increasing ϕgate
decreases the electron density and hence, both threshold
voltage and ION/IOFF ratio increases.

Fig. 11. (a) Threshold voltage variation and (b) ION/IOFF ratio at different
doping in the investigated SG-MOSFET.

It can be concluded that Vt and ION/IOFF ratio are

significantly affected by the doping in a SG-MOSFET. A
trade off can be seen between the threshold voltage and
ION/IOFF ratio. Threshold voltage and ION/IOFF ratio are also
influenced by the selection of gate material and drain to
source voltage. Fig. 12 shows the effect of gate work
functions (ϕgate) whereas Fig. 13 shows the effect of drain to
source voltage (VDS). A significant increase in ION/IOFF ratio
can be seen at higher work function of gate. High drain
voltage ensures a low threshold voltage but also decreases
the ION/IOFF ratio. This is due to the reduction in the
overdrive voltage and hence, channel formation takes place
at a lower gate voltage. Proper selection of gate material
can ensure a high ION/IOFF ratio. It is worth mentioning that
although high drain voltage decreases the threshold voltage
of the device which is desirable but it may damage the short
channel device (if it exceeds the breakdown voltage).

Fig. 14. Electron density and corresponding current density lines variation
at (a) VDS=0.45V and (b) VDS=0.55V.

Fig. 12. (a) Threshold voltage and (b) ION/IOFF ratio at different gate work
functions (ϕgate=4.8/5/5.1 eV) in SG-MOSFET.

Fig. 13. (a) Threshold voltage and (b) ION/IOFF ratio at different drain
voltage (VDS=0.45/0.5/0.55V) in SG-MOSFET.

Fig. 14 shows the electron density and the

corresponding current density lines at different VDS. It is
clearly visible that electron density increases with the Fig. 15. Electron density and corresponding current density lines variation
increasing VDS and hence, threshold voltage decreases at (a) ϕgate=4.8 eV and (b) ϕgate=5.10 eV.

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 2022 IEEE International Conference of Electron Devices Society Kolkata Chapter (EDKCON), 26-27 November, 2022, Kolkata, India 80

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