A LOW-FREQUENCY NOISE STUDY OF GATE-ALL-AROUND SOI TRANSISTORS

In this paper, the low-frequency noise characteristics of both n and p-type gate-all-around (GAA) SOI MOS transistors are reported and compared with the noise behavior of conventional, partially depleted (PD) SOI transistors. As will be demonstrated, the input-referred noise of n-channel GAA transistors is considerably lower than for standard ones, which is related to the higher device transconductance, coupled to the occurrence of volume inversion. P-channel devices have a one order of magnitude lower noise spectral density than n-MOST's, which is due to the corresponding lower density of interface traps. GAA p-MOST's tend to have a lower average noise in weak inversion than their standard-SOI counterparts. In strong inversion, the reverse situation is often found. Finally, it will be demonstrated that in n-type GAA transistors no kink-related excess noise is observed, which is an additional benefit for using this type of SOI technology.