Numéro
J. Phys. IV France
Volume 12, Numéro 3, May 2002
Page(s) 19 - 22
DOI https://doi.org/10.1051/jp420020029


J. Phys. IV France
12 (2002) Pr3-19
DOI: 10.1051/jp420020029

Temperature scaling of nanoscale silicon MOSFETs

V. Sverdlov, Y. Naveh and K.K. Likharev

State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3800, U.S.A.


Abstract
We have combined a 1D model of double-gate MOSFETs with ultrathin intrinsic channel, with a simple model of power consumption in digital integrated circuits, to calculate the temperature dependence of the minimum total (static + dynamic) power P and the optimal power supply voltage $V_{\rm DD}$. The results are strongly dependent on the circuit speed assumptions. If the current trend of speed scaling with the critical size reduction is sustained, both P and $V_{\rm DD}$ saturate as soon as T is decreased below ~100 K. On the other hand, if the high speed condition is removed, transistors may operate in the subthreshold region and minimum value of P scales as T2 while the optimum value of $V_{\rm DD}$ drops as T. This reduction is, however, limited by thermal fluctuations, leading to a different scaling, $V_{\rm DD}\propto T^{1/2}$ and $P \propto T^1$, for low temperatures and/or large circuit densities. Because of this limitation, deep cooling of CMOS circuits may make sense only in very special cases.



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