Effect of high-energy neutrons on MuGFETs

This paper investigates, for the first time. the influence of high-energy neutrons on Multiple-Gate FETs (MuGFETs) with various gate lengths and fin widths Neutron-induced degradation is addressed through the variation of major device parameters such as threshold voltage, subthreshold slope, maximum transconductance and DIBL We demonstrate that high-energy neutrons result in total-dose effects largely similar to those caused by gamma- and proton-irradiations It is shown that, contrarily to the generally-believed immunity to irradiation, very short-channel MuGFETs can become extremely sensitive to the total-dose effect. The possible reasons of such length-dependent neutron-induced degradation are discussed and finally related to gate edges (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved