Exploring Quantum Tunneling in Ultrathin Transistors with Multiple Top Gates

With the advent of fully depleted silicon-on-insulator technology, electrostatic doping has become part of a production platform in the form of body biasing. Transistor technologies with multiple top gates further evolve the concept. Taking electrostatic control over the polarity of the charge injection into the transistor channel, new dynamic device modes can be realized including n-type, p-type, high performance and low power. We discuss the density matrix of two exemplary device architectures and point to quantum tunneling as the current bottleneck. The arising challenge to achieve competitive current drives of several hundreds of µA per micron is addressed.