Investigation of High-Frequency Noise Characteristics in Tensile-Strained nMOSFETs

For the first time, the high-frequency noise behavior of tensile-strained n-channel metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors, including their temperature dependency, is experimentally examined. Our experimental results show that with similar saturation voltages, the strained device is found to have larger channel noise than the control device at the same bias point. For given direct-current power consumption, however, due to enhanced transconductance, the strained device has better small signal behaviors (higher f_t and f_max) and noise characteristics (smaller NF_min and R_n) than the control device.