ABSTRACT
Fabrication and circuit design are linked by compact device modeling; i.e., the electrical characteristics of the devices fabricated on a wafer are represented by sufficiently simple but preferably still physics-based models that are suitable for circuit simulation and optimization. The importance of modeling has been growing rapidly due to strongly increased device complexity, manufacturing cost, and fabrication time. There is an increased demand from industry for first-pass success of high-frequency (HF) analog circuits in order to stay competitive. For SiGeC HBT technologies, ranging from production to the most advanced process, this has been successfully addressed by the standard compact bipolar transistor model HICUM/L2 [Schr10].
For practical applications, a compact model (CM) itself is not sufficient though. Its model parameters need to be determined from measurements of terminal (current, voltage) characteristics, preferably making use of clever test structures and mathematical manipulations (so-called parameter extraction methods) in order to be able to separate the various, often superimposed, physical effects and their related parameters. Consistent physics-based parameter extraction methods that provide for a given process accurate geometry-scalable and statistical device models not only represent a key enabler to first-pass design success but also yield important information for process development. One objective of DOTSEVEN was the development of 114improved or even new parameter extraction methods and to provide a unified set of test structures.
