Steady-state and cyclo-stationary RTS noise in mosfets

The study of low-frequency noise in MOSFETs is gaining importance with reducing device dimensions. The effect of low-frequency noise is not just confined at low frequencies but it is also up-converted to Radio Frequencies (RF) in electronic circuits like oscillators and mixers. Hence the modeling of this low-frequency noise and techniques to reduce its effect are important. It has been reported in literature that the low-frequency noise in MOSFETs decreases significantly under changing gate bias. Unfortunately, the circuit simulators available do not model this behavior. In this thesis the low-frequency noise in MOSFETs under steady-state and dynamic biasing conditions was investigated. The low-frequency noise in MOSFETs dominated by RTS noise is the most sensitive to biasing changes. While periodic large-signal excitation is successfully used to reduce the LF noise dominated by RTS, it also occurs in some samples that the low-frequency noise increases because the normally ‘dormant’ traps under steady-state conditions get ‘active’ as a result of the dynamic biasing. The RTS noise is the dominant noise source in both n-type as well as p-type sub-micron MOSFETs. Time-domain RTS measurements lead to a better understanding of the RTS noise. The time-domain analysis was used to extract the RTS parameters under periodic large-signal excitation, which ....