Quantum Transport Simulation of Strain and Orientation Effects in Sub-20 nm Silicon-on-Insulator FinFETs

Quantum confinement in nanoscale MOSFETs based on silicon-on-insulator FinFET architecture will affect the effectiveness of strain engineering. This is because energy valley splitting due to quantum confinement may weaken the strain effect. In this paper, we investigate this phenomenon by an in-house quantum transport simulator, Schrödinger equation Monte Carlo in three dimensions, which can provide the quantum transport simulation of nanoscale 3-D MOSFET geometries such FinFETs, as well as take various scattering processes into account. Our simulation results indicate that the strain effect is more significant for devices with a channel orientation than those with a channel orientation. In addition, we also found that the strain effect is more notable when the scattering effect is considered in the quantum transport simulation. This result indicates that the scattering of hot carriers still plays a role in the carrier transport and, thus, the drain current of the nanoscale MOSFETs.