{"title":"Electrostatic Discharge and Failure Model of Carbon Nanotube Field-Effect Transistors","authors":"Yachi Duan;Can Yang;Dong Zhang;Yuepeng Gao;Yichao Sun;Jia Si;Peng Lu;Xiaojing Li;Jianhui Bu;Bo Li","doi":"10.1109/TED.2025.3545011","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The electrostatic discharge (ESD) and failure mechanisms of carbon nanotube field-effect transistors (CNT FETs) were thoroughly investigated via transient current tests and numerical simulations. Experiments demonstrated that CNT FETs have a three-stage ESD process according to transmission-line pulse (TLP) and human-body model (HBM) measurements, vastly different from the snapback phenomenon in conventional Si CMOS transistors. As the drain bias (<inline-formula> <tex-math>${V} _{\\text {DS}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) increases from 2 to 12 V, the ESD mechanism of CNT FETs changes from thermionic emission (first stage) to band-to-band tunneling (second stage), which results in a dynamic discharge impedance. The soft breakdown of the drain-to-gate isolation dielectric contributes to the discharge current in the third stage when <inline-formula> <tex-math>${V} _{\\text {DS}} \\gt 12$ </tex-math></inline-formula> V. The breakdown current-induced heating of CNT FETs can cause critical damage to the drain-to-gate isolation dielectric and the metal contacts and eventually result in device failure. Therefore, the drain-to-gate isolation dielectric is identified as the weak spot, requiring optimization to enhance the reliability of CNT FETs.","PeriodicalId":13092,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices","volume":"72 4","pages":"1617-1623"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10909624/","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The electrostatic discharge (ESD) and failure mechanisms of carbon nanotube field-effect transistors (CNT FETs) were thoroughly investigated via transient current tests and numerical simulations. Experiments demonstrated that CNT FETs have a three-stage ESD process according to transmission-line pulse (TLP) and human-body model (HBM) measurements, vastly different from the snapback phenomenon in conventional Si CMOS transistors. As the drain bias (${V} _{\text {DS}}$ ) increases from 2 to 12 V, the ESD mechanism of CNT FETs changes from thermionic emission (first stage) to band-to-band tunneling (second stage), which results in a dynamic discharge impedance. The soft breakdown of the drain-to-gate isolation dielectric contributes to the discharge current in the third stage when ${V} _{\text {DS}} \gt 12$ V. The breakdown current-induced heating of CNT FETs can cause critical damage to the drain-to-gate isolation dielectric and the metal contacts and eventually result in device failure. Therefore, the drain-to-gate isolation dielectric is identified as the weak spot, requiring optimization to enhance the reliability of CNT FETs.
期刊介绍:
IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices publishes original and significant contributions relating to the theory, modeling, design, performance and reliability of electron and ion integrated circuit devices and interconnects, involving insulators, metals, organic materials, micro-plasmas, semiconductors, quantum-effect structures, vacuum devices, and emerging materials with applications in bioelectronics, biomedical electronics, computation, communications, displays, microelectromechanics, imaging, micro-actuators, nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, photovoltaics, power ICs and micro-sensors. Tutorial and review papers on these subjects are also published and occasional special issues appear to present a collection of papers which treat particular areas in more depth and breadth.