Suppression of Timing Variations due to Random Dopant Fluctuation by Back-gate Bias in a Nanometer CMOS Inverter

Background: In state-of-the-art nanometer metal-oxide-semiconductor-field-effect- transistors (MOSFETs), optimization of timing characteristic is one of the major concerns in the design of modern digital integrated circuits. Objective: This study proposes an effective back-gate-biasing technique to comprehensively investigate the timing and its variation due to random dopant fluctuation (RDF) employing Monte Carlo methodology. Methods: To analyze RDF-induced timing variation in a 22-nm complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) inverter, an ensemble of 1000 different samples of channel-doping for negative metal-oxide semiconductor (NMOS) and positive metal-oxide semiconductor (PMOS) was reproduced and the input/output curves were measured. Since back-gate bias is technology dependent, we present in parallel results with and without VBG. Results: It is found that the suppression of RDF-induced timing variations can be achieved by appropriately adopting back-gate voltage (VBG) through measurements and detailed Monte Carlo simulations. Consequently, the timing parameters and their variations are reduced and, moreover they are also insensitive to channel doping with back-gate bias. Conclusion: Circuit designers can appropriately use back-gate bias to minimize timing variations and improve the performance of CMOS integrated circuits.