Nanosheet (NS) and nanowire (NW) FET architectures scaled to a gate length (LG) of 16 nm and below are benchmarked against equivalent FinFETs. The device performance is predicted using a 3D finite element drift-diffusion/Monte Carlo simulation toolbox with integrated 2D Schrödinger equation based quantum corrections. The NS FET is a viable replacement for the FinFET in high performance (HP) applications when scaled down to LG of 16 nm offering a larger on-current (ION) and slightly better sub-threshold characteristics. Below LG of 16 nm, the NW FET becomes the most promising architecture offering an almost ideal sub-threshold swing, the smallest off-current (IOFF), and the largest ION/IOFF ratio out of the three architectures. However, the NW FET suffers from early ION saturation with the increasing gate bias that can be tackled by minimizing interface roughness and/or by optimisation of a doping profile in the device body.
