Industrial Seminar Series: Fully-Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator (FDSOI) Process Technology for Subthreshold-Operation Ultra-Low Power Electronics

Ultra-low-power transistors are an enabling technology for many proposed applications, including ubiquitous sensor networks, RFID tags, implanted medical devices, portable biosensors, handheld devices, 3-D and parallel processing, and space-based applications. MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MITLL) has designed a subthreshold-optimized fabrication process from the substrate material through the interconnect metal. Typical conventional transistors, designed for high performance, above threshold operation, will have comparatively high off-state leakage and overlap capacitance, as well as poorer subthreshold slope and potentially lower channel mobility. With the MITLL transistors specifically engineered for subthreshold operation, it is possible to realize a device with a minimum switching energy and off-state current without significant impact to the energy-delay product.
Matthew J. Renzi received the B.S. degree in physics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1997, and the M.S and Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from Cornell University in 2001 and 2003, focusing on x-ray detectors for high-speed radiography. In 2003, he joined the Advanced Technology Division at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory, working on a variety of detector programs. He is currently a Member of the Advanced Silicon Technology Group.