Nanoscale Field-Effect Transistors: An Ultimate Size Analysis

Abstract

We have used a simple analytically solvable model to analyze the characteristics of dual-gate metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors with 10-nm-scale channel length $L$. The model assumes ballistic dynamics of 2D electrons in an undoped channel between highly doped source and drain. When applied to silicon n-MOSFETs, calculations show that the voltage gain (necessary for logic applications) drops sharply at $L\sim 10 nm$, while the conductance modulation remains sufficient for DRAM cell applications until $L\sim 4 nm$.