Tunnel FET Analog Benchmarking and Circuit Design

Abstract

A platform for benchmarking tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs) for analog applications is presented and used to compare selected TFETs to FinFET technology at the 14-nm node. This benchmarking is enabled by the development of a universal TFET SPICE model and a parameter extraction procedure based on data from physics-based device simulators. Analog figures of merit are computed versus current density to compare TFETs with CMOS for low-power analog applications to reveal promising directions for the system development. To illustrate the design space enabled by TFETs featuring sub-60-mV/decade subthreshold swing, two example circuits including a picopower common-source amplifier and an ultralow-voltage ring oscillator are demonstrated.

Keywords

• Analog circuit
• benchmarking
• compact model
• steep subthreshold swing (SS)
• tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET)
• ultralow-voltage circuit