Static Measurements and Parameter Extraction

The Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) is one of the key devices for the fabrication of very (or ultra) large scale integrated circuits in modern microelectronics. The performance of the MOSFET is primarily determined by the quality of the gate dielectrics and that of the Si — SiO₂ interface which directly affects the carrier transport properties. On the other hand, the modeling of the device characteristics requires the rigorous definition of the MOSFET parameters which mainly control the device operation. Furthermore, the design of analog and digital circuits relies on electrical simulations based on SPICE-like programs in which state-of-the-art MOSFET static models have to be implemented in analytical forms. For this reason, the modeling of the submicron MOS transistor is a mandatory issue for the development of new CMOS circuits and semiconductor memories. Besides, the static measurements and the corresponding parameter extraction of MOSFETs have proved to be a powerful and simple characterization tool even though they are not competing with other electrical techniques also presented in this book.