FinFET Versus Gate-All-Around Nanowire FET: Performance, Scaling, and Variability

Abstract

Performance, scalability, and resilience to variability of Si SOI FinFETs and gate-all-around (GAA) nanowires (NWs) are studied using in-house-built 3-D simulation tools. Two experimentally based devices, a 25-nm gate length FinFET and a 22-nm GAA NW are modeled and then scaled down to 10.7and 10-nm gate lengths, respectively. A TiN metal gate work-function granularity (MGG) and line edge roughness (LER) induced variability affecting OFF and ON characteristics are investigated and compared. In the OFF-region, the FinFETs have over an order of magnitude larger OFF-current that those of the equivalent GAA NWs. In the ON-region, the 25/10.7-nm gate length FinFETs deliver 20/58% larger ON-current than the 22/10-nm gate length GAA NWs. The FinFETs are more resilient to the MGG and LER variability in the subthreshold compared to the GAA NWs. However, the MGG ON-current variability is larger for the 10.7-nm FinFET than that for the 10-nm GAA NW. The LER ON-current variability depends largely on the RMS height; whereas a 0.6-nm RMS height yields a similar variability for both FinFETs and GAA NWs. Finally, the industry preferred (110) channel orientation is more resilient to the MGG and LER variability in both architectures.