Abstract
Scaling consideration is applied to the coupling electro-thermal characteristics of Si MOSFETs with device length typically larger than 100 nm. The non-equilibrium nature of the electrons and the crystal lattice is considered. Both lumped and rigorous electro-thermal models are deployed to examine the device thermal trend with device scaling. The lumped model considers the self-heating of the device and the resulting electron and lattice temperature rise. The results show that the non-equilibrium nature of electrons and phonons becomes important for devices with gate lengths typically shorter than 1 micrometer. Also, the lumped model showed an increase of the electron temperature due to the scaling trend even though the lattice temperature is kept constant. Further investigation of the heat generation characteristics revealed that hotspot predictions for devices typically shorter than 200 nm need different strategies than for larger devices.
