Total ionizing dose effects in advanced CMOS technologies

Abstract

Key aspects of the total-ionizing dose (TID) response of advanced complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technologies are examined. As technology scales down, stress can strongly affect radiation-induced leakage currents in ways that are difficult to predict in advance of detailed characterization and modeling of the responses of devices across a range of representative geometries. Quantifying the variability and the dependence on design parameters is essential to determine the significance of variability in the circuit design and lot-acceptance processes. Doping generally increases as devices become smaller for planar CMOS devices therefore technology scaling trends for TID appear to be favorable going forward, at least until device dimensions become so small that random dopant fluctuation begin to dominate the variability in response. The high body doping in partially depleted silicon on insulator (SOI) devices results in TID insensitivity, however doping in other advanced CMOS devices such as fully depleted SOI and FinFETs will play a role in the TID sensitivity, particularly in cases where lightly-doped regions are used.