Investigation of switching-time variations for nanoscale MOSFETs using the effective-drive-current approach

Abstract—This letter investigates the impacts of random dopant fluctuation (RDF) and line edge roughness (LER) on the switching-time (ST) variation for nanoscale MOSFETs using the effective-drive-current (Ieff) approach that decouples the ST variation into transition-charge (ΔQ) and Ieff variations. Al-though the RDF has been recognized as the main variation source to the threshold-voltage variation, this letter indicates that the relative importance of LER increases as the ST variation is considered. Index Terms—Line edge roughness (LER), MOSFET, random dopant fluctuation (RDF), switching time (ST). I