A Steep-Slope Transistor Combining Phase-Change and Band-to-Band-Tunneling to Achieve a sub-Unity Body Factor.
Steep-slope transistors allow to scale down the supply voltage and the energy per computed bit of information as compared to conventional field-effect transistors (FETs), due to their sub-60 mV/decade subthreshold swing at room temperature. Currently pursued approaches to achieve such a subthermionic subthreshold swing consist in alternative carrier injection mechanisms, like quantum mechanical band-to-band tunneling (BTBT) in Tunnel FETs or abrupt phase-change in metal-insulator transition (MIT) devices. The strengths of the BTBT and MIT have been combined in a hybrid device architecture called phase-change tunnel FET (PC-TFET), in which the abrupt MIT in vanadium dioxide (VO2) lowers the subthreshold swing of strained-silicon nanowire TFETs. In this work, we demonstrate that the principle underlying the low swing in the PC-TFET relates to a sub-unity body factor achieved by an internal differential gate voltage amplification. We study the effect of temperature on the switching ratio and the swing of the PC-TFET, reporting values as low as 4.0 mV/decade at 25 °C, 7.8 mV/decade at 45 °C. We discuss how the unique characteristics of the PC-TFET open new perspectives, beyond FETs and other steep-slope transistors, for low power electronics, analog circuits and neuromorphic computing.
Nanoelectronic Devices Laboratory (NanoLab), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland. wolfgang.vitale@epfl.ch.
Wolfgang A
WA
Vitale
Nanoelectronic Devices Laboratory (NanoLab), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Emanuele A
EA
Casu
Nanoelectronic Devices Laboratory (NanoLab), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Arnab
A
Biswas
Nanoelectronic Devices Laboratory (NanoLab), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Teodor
T
Rosca
Nanoelectronic Devices Laboratory (NanoLab), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Cem
C
Alper
Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (LESO-PB), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Anna
A
Krammer
Peter Grünberg Institut 9 (PGI-9), Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425, Jülich, Germany.
Gia V
GV
Luong
Peter Grünberg Institut 9 (PGI-9), Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425, Jülich, Germany.
Qing-T
QT
Zhao
Peter Grünberg Institut 9 (PGI-9), Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425, Jülich, Germany.
Siegfried
S
Mantl
Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (LESO-PB), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Andreas
A
Schüler
Nanoelectronic Devices Laboratory (NanoLab), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
A M
AM
Ionescu
D055590:Electromagnetic Phenomena; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D053770:Nanowires / Q000737:chemistry*; D014173:Transistors, Electronic