Model Developed Through Collaboration Between Synopsys and IIT Bombay to Simulate Negative-Bias Temperature Instability in FinFET and Nanowire FET at 7nm, 5nm and Below
Bangalore – India, Dec. 6, 2016 — Synopsys, Inc. (NASDAQ: SNPS) and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay today announced the release of a Synopsys Sentaurus™ TCAD model for negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI), a key reliability concern for advanced CMOS devices. NBTI has become more critical with the introduction of high-k metal gate (HKMG) processes and is a dominant reliability concern for FinFET, nanowire FET and future devices, contributing to the degradation of the threshold voltage, drain current, and other electrical parameters. The new Sentaurus TCAD model enables manufacturers of advanced silicon processes working in advanced nodes to assess and mitigate NBTI degradation as part of transistor design and process definition.
“Our research over the years identified and characterized the underlying physical mechanism responsible for NBTI and helped create a framework for predictive DC and AC NBTI simulation of planar FETs,” said Professor Souvik Mahapatra of IIT Bombay. “Working together with Synopsys, we have extended the model in Sentaurus TCAD for predictive NBTI simulation in FinFET and GAA nanowire FET. The model has been verified against hardware data, covers a wide range of experimental conditions, and has only three parameters for its calibration, making it suitable for practical TCAD simulations.”
“Semiconductor manufacturers face many challenges in developing future process nodes due to the rising complexity of transistor architectures and fabrication processes,” said Terry Ma, vice president of engineering for TCAD at Synopsys. “With this new NBTI model our customers can simulate NBTI degradation and minimize its impact through the optimization of the transistor architecture in the early stages of technology development.”
Availability
The NBTI model is available in the M-2016.12 release of Sentaurus TCAD and is available for immediate evaluation by customers.
