Manufacturability and the characterization of the Schottky junction transistor.

摘要

Today's society is becoming more and more dependent on portable electronics, whether it is out of necessity, as with medical implants, or out of convenience, as with cell phones or PDAs. Even the most remote electronics, such as satellites and space electronics, benefit from new low power devices. Described here is continuing work on a micropower device that operates at gigahertz frequencies, the Schottky Junction Transistor (SJT). The cutoff frequency of the SJT has been proven up to a few GHz at a gate length of 500nm, which compares well to Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) with gate lengths that are 5 times as small. With the initial work taking place in a traditional university laboratory, the next logical step is to see if the device can be manufactured in a full-scale dedicated foundry for mass production. The SJT contains no extra processing steps and can be produced with a few minimal changes to a standard Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) run.; This thesis begins with an overview of the SJT and continued scaling of the device. Followed by the modifications to a foundry's standard CMOS run to manufacture the SJT on a large scale. Also included is the characterization of variability of the electrical characteristics of the devices across a wafer using a single die from the initial run. Finally is Total Ionizing Dose (TID) measurements to study how the SJT would behave in a space environment. Further research is necessary for optimization and continual scaling of the SJT to increase its attractiveness as a new low power device.