Transport-Confined Multi-Barrier FETs: A New Paradigm for Low-Leakage High On-Current Transistors

Physics and performances of a new concept of nanoscale MOSFET, the Gate-Modulated Resonant-Tunneling (RT)-FET, are investigated through 3D Non-Equilibrium Green's Function simulations. Owing to the additional barriers and the related longitudinal confinement, the density of states in a RT-FET is reduced in its off state, while remaining comparable, in its on state, to that of a MOS transistor without barriers. The RT-FET thus features both a lower RT-limited off current and a faster increase of the current with gate voltage, i.e. an improved slope characteristic, and hence an improved ION/IOFF ratio, along with high on current and therefore good speed performance. RT-FETs could therefore be promising devices for future generation low power, high speed applications owing to superior delay-power trade-off than a MOSFET. In addition, RT-FETs are intrinsically immune to source-drain tunneling and appear promising candidate for extending the roadmap below 10nm.