Patent Application: US-201113134012-A

Abstract:
a method for modeling the performance of a laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductor device across a wide temperature range is disclosed . the method comprises the steps of positioning the device in an environment chamber operable to create a plurality of environment temperatures ; connecting the pins of the device to a measurement system operable to measure at least one device characteristic ; operating the environment chamber to set a series of four environment temperatures , acquiring a value of the device characteristic from the measurement system at each temperature , and extracting a temperature parameter set based on the value of the device characteristic at each temperature , then generating a temperature - scaling model for the device .

Description:
traditionally , high voltage operation has been realized in low voltage processes using circuit techniques . but these techniques increase both the complexity of the circuit and the power requirements . high voltage laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor ( ldmos ) devices make it possible to integrate low voltage circuits with high voltage parts instead of using discrete devices . the cross - section of the ldmos device used in this research effort is shown in fig1 . the p - well bulk is diffused from the source side under the gate forming a graded - channel region . the device has a gate length of 2 μm and a width of 40 . 45 μm . to withstand the high voltages between the source and drain , the lightly doped drift region is long ( 4 . 35 μm ) and it comprises two different sections —( i ) the thin gate - oxide drift region and ( ii ) the thick - field - oxide drift region . the ldmos device was implemented in ibm &# 39 ; s 5am sige bicmos technology [ 2 ] using custom layout techniques . since the 5am process is essentially for low voltage devices , the gate voltage of the ldmos device is capped at a maximum of 3 . 3 v while the drain voltage could be 20 v or higher , depending on the length and doping of the drift region . as this is a non - standard device , ibm does not provide models for it in the process design kit ( pdk ). when the gate bias exceeds the threshold voltage of the device , an inversion channel is created , and the carriers ( electrons in this case ) flow towards the lightly doped drift region . the gate extends over the drift region as seen in fig1 . when a positive bias is applied on the gate , electrons in the n - type drift region under the thin gate oxide get attracted to the surface and form an accumulation layer there . this provides continuity for the flow of electrons that originate in the inversion channel . beyond a certain point in the thin gate - oxide drift region , depletion occurs and the accumulation layer vanishes . as a result , the electrons are gradually spread into the bulk region of the drift area . the electrons are spread over the entire drift region near the drain . the gate bias does not have much effect in controlling these electrons flowing in the bulk as the field oxide is very thick compared to the thin oxide region [ 3 , 4 ]. one of the most distinguishing features of ldmos devices is the presence of the quasi - saturation effect in the output characteristics . quasi - saturation is manifested as the invariance of the drain current with increasing gate voltages as seen in fig2 . this is attributed to velocity saturation [ 5 , 6 ] happening in the lightly doped drift layer of the device . the input characteristics of the device across the entire temperature range are shown in fig3 . the packaged device was placed in an environment chamber that was fed with liquid nitrogen at 230 psi . this enabled the inventors to characterize the device from 300 ° k down to 93 ° k . for measuring the dc and cv characteristics , a keithley 4200 [ 7 ] semiconductor characterization system was utilized . this guarantees high - resolution data that can be used for device studies and modeling . the device pins were connected to the external measurement system using bnc connectors . all the necessary measurements such as input characteristics at high and low drain voltages , output characteristics and capacitance measurements were performed from 300 ° k to 93 ° k in 20 ° k intervals [ 8 ]. the capacitance values ( measured at 1 mhz ) were seen to vary negligibly with temperature . the parasitic capacitances due to the package were characterized using calibration test - structures included in the chip . they were then de - embedded from the c - v measurements of the device . the input characteristics of the device were along expected lines — i . e ., the threshold voltage kept increasing as the temperature decreased . also , as the temperature decreased , the drain current ( in the output characteristics ) increased as is expected in a mos device . but when the temperature was reduced below 133 ° k , the output current started decreasing , as shown in fig4 - 5 . such non - monotonic behavior is extremely rare in mosfets and even more so at the relatively higher temperatures shown here at which the current starts falling . the device was packaged in the well characterized 40 pin ceramic dual in - line package from kyocera [ 18 ]. the resistance associated with the package ( wires , leads etc .) was de - embedded from the measurements . the parasitic package resistance ( with known coefficients of temperature ) varies linearly within the temperature range of interest and does not contribute to the current roll - off . one plausible explanation for the above observations , especially for a high - voltage device is self - heating . but self - heating was conclusively ruled out as a cause due to the following reasons : ( i ) self - heating is manifested only in the saturation region of the output characteristics [ 9 ] when the higher current causes the device to heat up ( due to local hot - spots , device design etc ). in this case we see that the decrease in current is seen both in the linear and saturation regions ( fig4 ). ( ii ) devices that self - heat have the characteristic drooping curves [ 9 ] in the saturation region as seen in an unrelated device in fig6 ( second curve from the top ). but , in the jpl - built ldmos device , it is clear that the output characteristics do not droop ( fig2 ). ( iii ) the device was initially measured using normal dc sweeps . the same measurements were then repeated using pulses ( pulse width = 0 . 1 μs , interval between pulses = 40 μs ) instead of dc sources , which would eliminate any self - heating , if present . the current values measured through both techniques were the same , indicating the absence of self - heating . in fig6 , the top - most curve shows the data when the measurement was pulsed , thereby isolating the self - heating phenomenon . no such issue was encountered in the jpl ldmos . it is postulated that impurity carrier freeze - out is the phenomenon that is causing the current to decrease at cryogenic temperatures [ 8 ]. ionization energy is an important parameter in the operation of semiconductor devices . dopants usually require some energy ( usually thermal ) to ionize and produce carriers in the semiconductor . if the temperature is too low , dopants will not be sufficiently ionized and there will be insufficient carriers , leading to freeze - out . si mosfets can operate to the lowest temperatures because the carriers needed for conduction in the channel can be ionized by an electric field from the gate , known as field assisted impurity ionization [ 10 , 11 ]. si mosfets and cmos circuits are often used at deep cryogenic temperatures , below the freeze - out of si (& lt ; 40 ° k ) [ 12 ]. but in ldmos devices , the gate &# 39 ; s electric field is shielded from the drift region , which is doped low ( to increase breakdown voltage ) to begin with . this creates lower ionization of carriers in the drift region as the temperature is decreased and we can therefore see the current considerably decreasing after a transition temperature . in fig7 , it is shown that lightly doped regions experience freeze - out even at relatively higher temperatures compared to highly or moderately doped regions . therefore , the freeze - out begins in the drift layer of the device and consequently the output current keeps falling . there is a risk of these devices completely freezing - out in temperatures that normal mosfets continue to work . this fact has to be borne by circuit designers who use both lv and hv devices in their design . while the lv devices would continue to function as expected in low cryo temperatures , the hv devices would start to freeze - out and this has to be reflected in the models for an accurate , reliable design . the transition temperature can possibly be lowered by appropriate device design changes . the freeze - out effects are also manifested in the input characteristics as the apparent decrease in the current in strong inversion when the temperature decreases to low values ( fig3 ). standard compact models do not have temperature scaling equations that can replicate this freeze - out effect . therefore , there are no reliable means to predict the non - monotonic behavior of the output current in ldmos devices . mos model 20 [ 13 ] is a surface potential based model for asymmetric lateral mos devices that can replicate the effects due to the drift region without the necessity for a series external resistor in a sub - circuit configuration . mos model 20 may be implemented as software that is compiled from source code and run on a traditional desktop general - purpose computer . mm20 was chosen for this research project because it has been shown to successfully model hv ldmos devices to a great level of accuracy [ 3 ]. the equations and the source code were fairly mature and the model was available ( in verilog - a ) for modifications at the time this project began . moreover , the temperature scaling equations are neatly decoupled from the core dc and cv model — which makes understanding and modifying the model easier . to gauge the capability of the temperature scaling in the mm20 model , iso - thermal parameter extractions were performed for the ldmos device from 300 k to 93 k in steps of 20 k . self - heating was turned off in the model during this process . some representative fits obtained from the iso - thermal extractions can be seen in fig8 a - b . the dots are the measured data and the lines are the model . the gate voltage ranges from 0 . 7 v to 3 . 1 v in steps of 0 . 4 v . the parameter extraction was performed on the input ( i d - v gs ) and output characteristics ( i d - v ds ) along with the output conductance ( g ds ) for each temperature data point . the capacitance parameters were extracted before the dc extraction was performed . the simulation results have an excellent agreement with the data , including in the quasi - saturation region — which is a very challenging area to model in ldmos devices . one important point to be noted here is that the mm20 measurement procedure ( and hence the parameter extraction guide ) provided by nxp semiconductors is not directly applicable to this device because of its unique specifications . for example , as per the mos model 20 manual [ 13 ], the idvd measurement entails stepping the gate voltage from v t + 0 . 1 v to v t + 3 . 1 v . for this device , it would not be feasible to step the gate voltage up to ˜ 4 v when the maximum allowed gate voltage is only 3 . 3 v . moreover , certain model parameters such as mexp , mexpd , cgso , and cgdo were not included in the extraction procedure . therefore , changes needed to be made to the parameter extraction guide to accommodate these requirements . at the end of the iso - thermal extractions , all the extracted temperature dependent parameters were plotted . some of them include bet ( gain factor of the channel region at the reference temperature , t ref ), betacc ( gain factor for the accumulation layer in the drift region ), rd ( on - resistance of the drift region ), the 3 ( mobility reduction coefficient in the channel region due to the horizontal electric field caused by velocity saturation ), and phib ( surface potential at the onset of strong inversion in the channel region ). these plots were then superimposed with the same parameters calculated by the temperature scaling equations ( fig9 ). for instance , in the native mm20 model , the temperature scaling of the parameter bet is given as a simple exponential [ 13 ]; where β i is the bet extracted at t ref , n β ( etabet ) is the temperature scaling exponent ( a parameter ) and tr is the normalized temperature . it can be clearly seen in fig9 that the native model would grossly over - estimate the value of bet in lower cryogenic temperatures as it does not account for carrier freeze - out . similarly , over -( or under ) estimation of the values are also observed with the other temperature dependent parameters . in low cryo temperatures , since most of the processed parameter values are incorrect , the output current is also erroneous as seen in fig1 a - d . the above shortcomings clearly demonstrate the need for improved temperature scaling equations that would render the model useful for circuit design in deep cryogenic temperatures . “ physical ” models ( even though they have some arbitrary fitting coefficients ) for impurity freeze - out are finite - element based and require at least a one dimensional device simulator to predict the results [ 15 - 16 ]. this is not a practical solution for compact modeling where speed and convergence are extremely important factors . moreover , such numerical models require intimate knowledge of the process and materials used in the construction of the device — information that is difficult to obtain from the manufacturers . therefore , temperature scaling in compact models is generally semi - empirical . in the mm20 model , the temperature dependence equations are decoupled from the core model . in other words , temperature parameters and equations process those parameters that are used in the dc and ac model . for example , the simplified expression for the channel region current is [ 13 ]: i ch = β t · v int1 /( f mob ·( 1 + θ 3 · v di ))+ g min · k 0 2 · v di ( 2 ) f mob = 1 + θ 1 · v int2 + θ 2 · v int3 / k 0 ( 3 ) in the above equations , g min is a constant , parameter k o ( ko ) is the body factor of the channel region , parameters θ 1 ( the 1 ) and θ 2 ( the 2 ) are mobility reduction coefficients due to the vertical electrical field , while θ 3 ( the 3 ) is the mobility reduction coefficient due to the horizontal field . v int1 , v int2 and v int3 are internally calculated voltages . it can be seen that temperature dependence is not directly implemented in the above equations . only the parameters that are used in the core equations are made to track with temperature . therefore , the model can be suitably enhanced for extreme environment operation by modifying the temperature scaling equations of the parameters that track with temperature . the native mm20 model has either linear or simple exponential functions to describe the trend of the variation of the temperature dependent parameters ; which works down to about 170 k for this device , but fails below that . freeze - out in compact modeling terms can be visualized as the decrease in mobility ( at inversion in channel and accumulation in drift region ) and the consequent increase in the drift resistance beyond the transition temperature . various mathematical functions were evaluated to describe this non - monotonic behavior . a modified form of the equation that defines the probability density function ( pdf ) of the gumbel distribution [ 14 ] was finally chosen as it can replicate the behavior accurately without any requirement for piecewise relations or weighting functions . this will simplify both parameter extraction and model convergence . since a parameter &# 39 ; s value can be greater than one , the normalization of the pdf is replaced by a user defined parameter as shown in equation ( 4 )— for bet , where bettmp is β tmp and ebettmp is e − bettmp : β tmp =( t a − t t )/ β i · β exp ( 5 ) in the above equations , t a is the ambient temperature and t t is the freeze - out transition temperature . the etabet parameter in the native model has been replaced by two new parameters — betexp ( β exp ) and betmult ( β mult ). betexp is defined as the scaling coefficient for bet and betmult is the temperature exponent of bet . with the new equation , bet varies with temperature as shown in fig1 a - d . the incorporation of parameters such as the transition temperature and the consequent non - monotonic behavior of the parameter provides a more physical meaning to the temperature scaling equations than what was present in the native model . equation ( 1 ) in the native model was then replaced with the newly developed equations ( 4 ) and ( 5 ) and their associated parameters . in a similar way , the temperature scaling of the drift region resistance is also illustrated below . in the native model , the drift region resistance is scaled as : where dt is d t , rdt is r dt , rd is r d , and etard is η rd . where rd is r d , dtmp is d tmp , rdtmp is r dtmp , and erdtmp is e − rdtmp the etard ( η rd ) parameter in the native model is replaced by rdexp ( the first - order scaling coefficient of rd ) and rdmult ( the temperature exponent of rd ). the results of rd scaling and of some other representative parameters are also shown in fig1 a - d . note that the newly developed equations are able to replicate the temperature scaling of the parameters very accurately . the performance of the native temperature scaling equations are also overlaid on the figures for comparison . other parameters such as phib had a linear variation over the temperature range and the built - in equations were therefore sufficient for lower cryo operation . the temperature scaling equations of the native mm20 verilog - a model were then replaced with the newly developed equations using the modlyng tool [ 17 ]. the new model has 12 new parameters for temperature dependencies . this modified model was then compiled for spectre and simulated , using a standard desktop computer , the results of which can be seen in fig1 a - f . the model with the newly developed equations is extremely accurate ( error & lt ; 1 - 2 %) over the entire temperature range . as shown in fig1 , it also performs exceptionally well in the sub - threshold region ( including back - bias ) and in the c - v regimes ( fig1 and 15 ). there were no changes in the model simulation times or convergence properties . this model can be used to extend the temperature scaling behavior until the device fails ( in both high and low temperature conditions ). as previously mentioned , the parameter extraction guide of the mm20 model is not directly applicable to this device due to its unique specifications . for this particular device , since v gs , max is only 3 . 3 v , there is significant overlap between the idvd and idvdh measurements . therefore , only one of these measurements was performed ( with several v gs steps from the threshold voltage , v t to v gs , max ) from which all the parameters related to the output characteristics were extracted . the smoothing factor , mexp should also be extracted along with the channel length modulation parameters ( alp , vp ). a new step was then added to extract the gain parameter in accumulation ( betacc ) along with the drift region resistance ( rd ) and the smoothing factor for the linear to quasi - saturation regime ( mexpd ) from the same measurement . the transition temperature when the output current starts rolling off has now been added as a parameter for modeling ldmos devices that experience freeze - out and it has to be measured accurately from the output characteristics . once a complete set of parameters is extracted at room temperature , the relevant temperature scaling parameters can now be introduced in the same extraction procedures at different temperatures . since the ldmos temperature behavior is non - monotonic , greater accuracy can be achieved by using 4 or more temperature points ( i . e . at room temperature , at the upper bound temperature , at the transition temperature and finally one more data point below the transition temperature where the current rolls - off ). for example , rdexp and rdmult should be extracted from the step in which rd was extracted , by keeping rd constant at different temperatures simultaneously . in other words , only by optimizing the temperature scaling factors , can the device be modeled at other temperatures too . greater weight may be provided to the extraction at lower temperatures for enhanced accuracy , if the circuits designed with the model are to be primarily used in deep cryogenic conditions . a global fine - tune may also be performed towards the end of the extraction to the temperature scaling parameters for better optimization . an alternate method would be to extract the dc and ac parameters iso - thermally ( as described previously ) at four different temperatures — room temperature , upper bound , lower bound and transition temperature . the base parameters are then fitted to the new scaling equation using an external program such as matlab to extract the temperature scaling parameters . this method is less automated , but it entails lower optimization time and can therefore be used for quick turnarounds . the parameter extraction methodology can be visualized in the form of the flowchart shown in fig1 a - b . the model with the new temperature scaling equations is able to accurately model the operation of the device over the entire temperature range with a single parameter set . the performance at − 180 ° c . is shown in fig1 a - d , which when compared to fig1 a - d prove the effectiveness of the newly developed equations and the parameter extraction strategy . there are many advantages of using these newly developed equations and the associated extraction methodology : ( a ) temperature modeling becomes much easier and intuitive , ( b ) the circuit designer need not switch between different model files depending on the temperature , ( c ) makes its possible to design circuits such as bandgap references for extremely low temperatures as a continuous description of model performance is available through this method vis - à - vis the binned model technique . these equations can be implemented for temperature scaling in any compact model and are not restricted to the mos model 20 . the equations may also be used to model any behavior that is non - monotonic . in other words , the applications of the equation are not restricted to temperature modeling — but can also be used for modeling radiation effects , reliability , ageing of semiconductor devices , among others . the present invention has been described with certain preferred and alternative embodiments that are intended to be exemplary only and not limiting to the full scope of the invention . r . berger , r . garbos , j . cressler , m . mojarradi , l . peltz , b . blalock , w . johnson , g . niu , f . dai , h . a . mantooth , j . holmes , m . alles , p . mcclusky , “ miniaturized data acquisition system for extreme temperature environments ,” 2008 ieee aerospace conference , pp . 1 - 12 , 1 - 8 mar . 2008 . 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