Fin width influence on the harmonic distortion of standard and strained FinFETs operating in saturation

Abstract

This work compares the harmonic distortion of standard and biaxially strained FinFETs aiming at analog applications such as amplifiers. The harmonic distortion has been extracted for devices operating as single transistor amplifiers. Total harmonic distortion (THD) and third order harmonic distortion (HD3) have been evaluated for devices with several fin widths. For a fairer analysis, the influence of the open-loop voltage gain (Av) in devices with different dimensions has also been considered generating the figures of merit THD/Av and HD3/Av. According to the analysis, narrower devices have overcome the wider ones and conventional FinFETs have shown to be more attractive than the strained ones for analog purposes. Narrower standard FinFETs exhibited up to 20 dB THD/Av better in relation to the strained ones. © The Electrochemical Society.