Jul 24, 2007

Atomistic simulation of Graphene Nanoribbon Field-Effect Transistors

A very interesting paper presenting a 3-D atomistic simulation study of Graphene Nanoribbon Field-Effect Transistors (GNR-FETs) has been published in IEEE Electron Device Letters. The performance observed is comparable to the one of carbon nanotube FETs, but the leakage problems associated to the band-to-band tunneling current are also similar. The authors of this paper are B. Fiori and G. Iannacone, from the University of Pisa, Italy.

The simulations have been based on a self-consistent solution of the 3-D Poisson's and Schrödinger equations with open boundary conditions within the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism. This simulation study can be very helpful to start the development of a compact GNR-FET model, which will be necessary if this novel device becomes successful.

Jul 20, 2007

MOS-AK'07 Second call for papers

MOS-AK Workshop on compact modeling, organized for fifth subsequent time as an integral part of the ESSDERC/ESSCIRC conference, aims to strengthen a network and discussion forum among experts in the field, create an open platform for information exchange related to compact/Spice modeling, bring people in the compact modeling field together, as well as obtain feedback from technology developers, circuit designers, and CAD tool vendors. The technical program of MOS-AK Workshop consists of one day of tutorials given by noted academic and industry experts, also a posters session is foreseen. The poster session program is open and you are welcome to submit a poster presentation (before Aug.10 deadline): http://www.mos-ak.org/munich/

--- Important dates:
--------------------
* Deadline - Aug. 10
* Final workshop program - Aug.14
* MOS-AK Workshop - Sept.14 at Technische Universität München (TUM)
* after the workshop, selected presentations will be published
in the IJNM - MOS-AK publication partner.

Further information including recommended hotels and driving directions will be posted at the web site, soon; please visit regularly: http://www.mos-ak.org

--- Related Events:
-------------------
* "Industrialization of MEMS"
* ESSDERC/ESSCIRC Tutorial, September 10, 2007 Munich, Germany
* http://www.esscirc2007.org/tutorials.html#MEMS

Jul 3, 2007

WOFE'07

The 2007 Workshop on Frontiers in Electronics (WOFE) will be held in a very beautiful place: Cozumel (Mexico) from December 15 to 19 2007.

WOFE is being held every two years. It is a very special workshop devoted to bring together researchers who work at the frontiers of electronic devices and circuits. Therefore, it facilitates the interaction between researchers from different areas such as emerging nanodevices, bioelectronics, nanotubes, teraherz and infrared electronics and photonics, TFTs and giant area electronics, nanoMEMs, or wide band gap technology, provided their targets are at the frontiers of present electronics. Papers on modelling have also been usually accepted for WOFE, if they address advanced devices, or brand new modeling techniques.

We have to remark that the programme committee encourages to submit papers presenting discussions of controversial issues, rebuttals of theories, provocative or alternative views, and visionary outlooks.

The Chair of WOFE is Professor Michael S Shur, from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY (USA). Very prestigeous researchers will be invited for plenary talks.

The deadline for abstract submission is October 01 2007.

No doubt it should be very pleasant to spend several days in Cozumel enjoying nice weather in December. Every day the sessions end early in the afternoon, so there is plenty of time to enjoy the beach. As the WOFE schedule say, the afternoon is the time for "break and networking", what means beach, or networking on the beach. Furthermore, there is a wonderful social programme, which includes one very interesting excursion.

I recommend researchers to go to WOFE. It is a very adequate event for networking in a very beautiful and relaxing place.

Jun 30, 2007

Experiment on Scientific Communications

Well, today we can celebrate our first six months of existence in this blog. I'd like to take advantage of this fact to propose to all the gentle readers (as the dear old Dr. Isaac Asimov said) to leave a comment on what do you think about the utility of a blog as a method for scientific communication. I mean: there are the traditional ways (Conferences, Workshops, and so on), but the internet offers us many new possibilities, blogging being only one among others. Do you think that blogging can be useful? What do you think about other possibilites? Do you think that you could organize (for instance) a Conference using SecondLife? Do you think that webcasts (either from IEEE or other organizations) are useful or are they somewhat marginal?

Thanks (in advance) for your (kind) comments!

Jun 29, 2007

Threshold voltage and subthreshold swing models in undoped Double-Gate MOSFETs

Accurate models for the threshold voltage and subthreshold swing in nanoscale MOSFETs should be based forom a 2D electrostatic analysis.


In doped devices, the carrier concentration is usually neglected in such electrostatic analysis, that is carried out in the subthreshold region, where the doping concentration is much higher than the carrier concentration.

However, in the case of undoped DG MOSFETs, the carrier concentration may be not negligible for that electrostatic analysis, in particular in the threshold regime.

A recent paper was presenting the first complete threshold voltage and subthreshold swing models for nanoscale DG MOSFETs, by considering the carrier concentration in Poisson's equation:

El Hamid, H. A.; Roig Guitart, J.; Iniguez, B., "Two-Dimensional Analytical Threshold Voltage and Subthreshold Swing Models of Undoped Symmetric Double-Gate MOSFETs," IEEE Trans. on Electron Devices, vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 1402-1408, June 2007

This model includes the threshold voltage roll-off, the DIBL and the subthreshold swing degradation.

This paper improves the model developed by Qian Chen et al., also published in IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, in which the carrier concentration was considered, but the model development was done only at low drain voltage; the DIBL and the subthreshold swing degradation with the drain voltage were ignored:

Q. Chen, E. M. Harrell, J. D. Meindl, "A physical short-channel threshold voltage model for undoped symmetric double-gate MOSFETs," IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, vol. 50, no. 7, pp. 1631-1637, July 2003

Jun 27, 2007

IEEE papers

Well, another update on some IEEE publications. I've got three papers quite related to compact modeling:

"An analytical Compact Model for Nanowire FET", by B.C. Paul et alter, in IEEE Trans. on Electron Devices.

"Explicit Analytical Charge and Capacitance Models of Undoped Double-Gate MOSFETs", by O. Moldovan et alter, also in IEEE Trans. on Electron Devices.

"Limits of Performance Gain of Aligned CNT Over Randomized Network: Theoretical Predictions and Experimental Validation", by N. Pimparkar et alter, in IEEE Electron Device Letters.

Jun 25, 2007

International Semiconductor Device Research Symposium'07

The biennial International Semiconductor Device Research Symposium will take place on December 12-14, on Maryland, USA.
This Symposium focuses on exploratory research in electronic and photonic materials and devices. Areas such as novel device concepts, processing technologies, advanced modeling, nanotechnology, nanoelectronics, wide band-gap semiconductors, MEMS materials and devices, oxides and dielectrics, magnetic materials and devices, organic and polymer opto-electronic materials and devices, ultra high frequency devices & RF effects, and high power-high temperature devices are included. The Symposium brings together diverse participants in multidisciplinary areas, and provides a forum for extended personal scientific interaction for engineers, scientists, and students working in the field of advanced electronic materials and device technologies.
Moreover, it has a topic dedicated to Compact (and Distributed) Modeling, so I guess it can be interesting to go there and have a look. Another interesting advantage of presenting a paper at ISDRS 2007 is that it is held just after IEDM, and very close to the IEDM venue (Washington DC), so researchers who present papers at ISDRS can attend before IEDM and then go to ISDRS. This is why ISDRS is held every two years, when ISDRS is held at Washington DC.
In fact, ISDRS an alternative to IEDM, especially for university teams, in the sense that IEDM is more industrial oriented, while ISDRS focuses more on device properties research and device modeling.