Basics of Field Effect Transistors and Technology Scaling

This online course is the later part of the Principle of Semiconductor Devices Professional Certificate Program.

MOSFET as the most important component in integrated circuits will be introduced in this course. We will explain the basic operating principle of MOS capacitor and its application in charge-coupled devices (CCD) and CMOS Active Pixel Sensor (APS) in modern digital cameras.

Based on the MOS capacitor theory, different MOSFET operation regions, including strong inversion, subthreshold region, linear region, and saturation region, will be described. The deficiency of classical MOSFET theory and the need for more advanced mobility degradation and carrier velocity saturation theory will be elaborated.

To bridge the knowledge of transistors with practical applications, we will explain Moore’s Law and the approach to transistor scaling. Some specific features in modern MOSFETs including silicide, strain engineering, shallow junction, high-k gate dielectrics, metal gate stack, and their fabrication processes will be explained. The operating principle of advanced MOSFET structures, such as FinFET, nanowire transistors, gate-all-around MOSFET and 2D transistors, will also be introduced.

What you'll learn

• visualize the charge and capacitance characteristics of MOS capacitors
• describe the operation principle of charge couple devices and CMOS active-pixel sensor to construct a digital camera
• calculate the current voltage characteristics of MOSFETs
• explain how the reduction of transistor dimensions and device scaling drive the technology development
• identify the most important parameters to control short channel effects
• construct short channel MOSFETs
• communication in the language of nano-CMOS technology