Leuven | More than two weeks ago
Advancing 2D pFET understanding, to unravel future 2D-channel device technologies potential
2D materials have been proposed for more than one decade to replace the Silicon channel in future CMOS technologies, and extend Moore’s law validity, thanks to their large electron and hole mobilities, achievable at an atomic-scale thin channel, which also provides superior electrostatic control. Their adoption by a mainstream technology, or emergence as an alternative technology to CMOS, remains however an enormously challenging task, where technological advance situates at the confluence of fundamental material understanding, innovative device engineering and process control, advanced electrical characterization and pragmatic tackling of reliability concerns and design requirements.
Despite recent advances in prototyping nFET devices, there is an acute gap in pFET pathfinding. Device research avenues are currently being explored, to control and properly access the 2D channel, by identifying potential solutions to form, encapsulate and connect the 2D material with its surrounding environment. This calls for the development of advanced device characterization techniques, to extract parameters for the channel material (e.g. mobility, subthreshold swing, threshold voltage), contact (e.g. contact resistance, M/S Schottky barrier height, access resistance), and the gate stack (e.g. EOT, defects density, doping), etc. These will allow to identify application space, through systematic benchmarking. Batch-to-batch and device-to-device variability quantification allows adding a much-needed statistical dimension to the performance benchmarking, unraveling the 2D pFET device potential, to pursue performance matching with the counterpart nFET. A first reliability assessment will complete this picture and provide insights into the device lifetime, bias-temperature instability, and will feed back to further process improvement, towards conversion of device engineering innovations into technologically viable routes.
The research work of this Ph.D. topic will be carried out at imec Leuven.
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Profile:
We are looking for an enthusiastic person with a background/MSc degree in physics, electrical engineering or materials science, to join our team and work on exploratory logic devices. Furthermore, you:
References:
Required background: Electrical engineering/Physics, or Electrical Engineering/Materials
Type of work: 50% electrical characterization, 30% variability/reliability, 10% physical characterization, 10% literature
Supervisor: Nadine Collaert
Co-supervisor: Bogdan Govoreanu
Daily advisor: Bogdan Govoreanu, Tien Dat Ngo
The reference code for this position is 2025-052. Mention this reference code on your application form.