Silicon on Insulator

Standard Bulk-CMOS-technology targets use-temperatures of not more than 175 °C. With Silicon-on-Insulator-technologies (SOI), digital and analog circuitry is possible up to 250 °C and even more, but performance and reliability are strongly affected at these high temperatures. One of the main critical factors is the gate oxide quality and its reliability. In this paper, we present a study of gate oxide capacitor time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) measurements at temperatures up to 350 °C. The experiments were carried out on gate oxide capacitor structures which were realized in the Fraunhofer 1.0 μm SOI-CMOS process. This technology is based on 200 mm wafers and features, among others, three layers of tungsten metallization with excellent reliability concerning electromigration, voltage independent capacitors, high resistance resistors, and single-poly-EEPROM cells. The gate oxide thickness is 40 nm. Using the data of the TDDB-measurements, the behavior of field and temperatu...

This work presented an experimental study of the influence of combining the biaxial strain and 45° substrate rotation on the low-frequency noise of triple gate MuGFETs with different WFin and bias conditions. The results showed a 1/f noise characteristic for the strained and strained rotated devices in linear region, independent of WFin The strained rotated nMuGFET presents a lower LFN for narrow dimensions for practically all VGT condition, meanwhile for wider devices the opposite was found. The substrate rotation of strained MuGFETs is able to reduce the sidewall LFN.

We propose an ultra-broadband, ultra-compact and a dynamically tunable 1×2 power splitter on silicon on Insulator (SOI) platform with 220 nm thick silicon light-guiding layer, using two multimode interference (MMI) couplers connected with graphene-based waveguides as phase-tuning section through a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) configuration. First, we theoretically present and demonstrate a novel design for the MMI couplers by combining the plane wave expansion method (PWEM) and the mode expansion conjecture concept. To verify the proposed theory, a center-fed 1×2 MMI coupler and a 2×2 MMI coupler, respectively, as the input and output sections of our proposed device, are designed and simulated. The simulation results achieved by Lumerical FDTD show good agreement with the design theory. Then, a highly tunable graphene-embedded silicon waveguide, for highly efficient modulation of effective mod index (EMI), is duly designed using Lumerical Mode Solutions. As the two MZI arms, a ...

A multi-functional photonic circuit implemented on silicon on insulator (SOI) platform is reported. Eight phase modulators are connected to provide four Mach-Zehnder interferometer structure in parallel. Multimode interference couplers are used as the splitter/combiner of the MZI structures to provide static DC bias. This architecture generates two principle spatially separated 1st order harmonics from a single light source, which may be collected from separate ports without using any optical demultiplexing filters which permits remote heterodyning. A carrier suppression of >20 dB and spurious sideband suppression > 12 dB relative to the principle harmonics is achieved with bias voltage tuning only. In addition to the frequency conversion, the circuit can also perform as a sub-carrier generator, IQ modulator and frequency multiplier.

In this paper, we report on the design, simulation, and experimental analysis of a miniaturized device that can generate multiple circulated jet flows. The device is actuated by a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) diaphragm. The flows in the device were studied using three-dimensional transient numerical simulation with the programmable open source OpenFOAM and was comparable to the experimental result. Each flow is verified by two hotwires mounted at two positions inside each consisting chamber. The experiment confirmed that the flow was successfully created, and it demonstrated good agreement with the simulation. In addition, a prospective application of the device as an angular rate sensor is also demonstrated. The device is robust, is minimal in size, and can contribute to the development of multi-axis fluidic inertial sensors, fluidic amplifiers, gas mixing, coupling, and analysis.

Recent advancements in quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols opened the chance to exploit nonlaser sources for their implementation. A possible solution might consist in erbium-doped light emitting diodes (LEDs), which are able to produce photons in the third communication window, with a wavelength around 1550 nm. Here, we present silicon LEDs based on the electroluminescence of Er:O complexes in Si. Such sources are fabricated with a fully-compatible CMOS process on a 220 nm-thick silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer, the common standard in silicon photonics. The implantation depth is tuned to match the center of the silicon layer. The erbium and oxygen co-doping ratio is tuned to optimize the electroluminescence signal. We fabricate a batch of Er:O diodes with surface areas ranging from 1 µm × 1 µm to 50 µm × 50 µm emitting 1550 nm photons at room temperature. We demonstrate emission rates around 5 × 106 photons/s for a 1 µm × 1 µm device at room temperature using superconducting n...

Fabrication processes for silicon nanowires with triangular cross section are presented. Processes based on high resolution electron beam lithography and anisotropic etching have been developed on silicon on insulator substrates. As shown by numerical simulations, the triangular shape of the wire allows strong reduction of the dimensions by successive oxidation steps. Moreover, it is easy to define a gate on top of the wire that wraps the device and, with the back gate silicon substrate, allows the biasing of the structure on all sides. The conduction through the wire, as a function of the gate bias and for different temperatures, is reported and discussed.

Following the rapid development of the electronics industry and technology, it is expected that future electronic devices will operate based on functional units at the level of electrically active molecules or even atoms. One pathway to observe and characterize such fundamental operation is to focus on identifying isolated or coupled dopants in nanoscale silicon transistors, the building blocks of present electronics. Here, we review some of the recent progress in the research along this direction, with a focus on devices fabricated with simple and CMOS-compatible-processing technology. We present results from a scanning probe method (Kelvin probe force microscopy) which show direct observation of dopant-induced potential modulations. We also discuss tunneling transport behavior based on the analysis of low-temperature I-V characteristics for devices representative for different regimes of doping concentration, i.e., different inter-dopant coupling strengths. This overview outlines ...