PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF SCALED III-V AND Si BALLISTIC NANOWIRE MOSFETs

This paper describes analysis and simulations of Si and III-V Gate-All-Around nanowire MOSFETS assuming ballistic or quasi-ballistic transport. It is found that either channel material can provide the higher saturation current depending on the oxide thickness. For effective oxide thickness above approximately 0.5nm, the higher electron velocity of III-V's outweighs the higher density of states available in the Si device associated with higher effective mass and valley degeneracy and result in higher current for the III-V device. However, materials with higher effective mass and valley degeneracy result in smaller on-resistance in ballistic limit. Depending on the gate oxide capacitance, valley degeneracy may influence the attainable saturation current in a positive or negative way.