Uniaxially strained silicon influence on Two-stage Operational Transconductance Amplifiers designed with SOI FinFET's

Abstract

This paper analyzes the influence of uniaxially strained silicon on two-stage operational transconductance amplifiers (OTA) designed with SOI FinFETs. The OTA is designed with unstrained and strained SOI FinFETs. The circuit design was performed using experimental FinFETs data through LookUp Table (LUT) and Verilog-A model. Two different strategies were evaluated for designing the OTA: the same current bias (Iss) and the same inversion condition (gm/IDS), In both strained designs, the mobility improvement thanks to mechanical stress is responsible for higher voltage gain and gain-bandwidth product. Between the strained designs, the one that consider the same current bias of the unstrained one presents a lower power consumption due to the lower drain current compared to the same inversion condition. In summary, the OTA performance increase when it is designed with strained FinFET's.