Electrical characterization and reliability assessment of double-gate FinFETs

Introduction The three dimensional field effect transistor with multiple gates is on its way to be the transistor structure of choice in upcoming technology nodes because its threedimensional structure enables excellent immunity to short channel effects (Fig. 1) [1,2]. One device design, known as the FinFET, has a hard mask that is placed on the top fin surface to decouple it from the sidewall device operation (Fig. 1). FinFETs can be fabricated with either the (110) sidewall surface or (100) sidewall by rotating the device 45° on the wafer (Fig. 1). In this work, the impact of fin sidewall crystal orientation on performance and reliability are assessed.