Cryogenic Temperature Effects on 16nm FinFet Performance and Mismatch

Abstract

We present a full electrical characterization of a commercial 16 nm FinFet technology conducted at six different temperatures, from 300 K to 4.2 K. First, we explore the electrical performance, with particular emphasis on the unconventional oscillatory behavior observed in strong inversion at temperatures below 50 K. This is usually attributed to the 1D subbands filling by the inversion carriers. We then introduce a Lambert-W function-based model to extract the devices main figures of merit, and its effectiveness is demonstrated down to liquid helium temperature. Finally, we investigate device to device variability. Although the impact of the above-mentioned oscillations worsens the local variability at cryogenic temperature, 16 nm FinFet technology electrical and mismatch performance surpasses the planar technology ones.