A comparison of the kink effect in polysilicon thin film transistors and silicon on insulator transistors

Polysilicon thin film transistors (TFTs) differ from conventional silicon on insulator (SOI) transistors in that the TFT exhibits a fundamental gate length dependence of the voltage at which a kink occurs in the output characteristics. This difference is shown to be caused by the peak lateral electric field being strongly dependent on the doping density in an SOI transistor, but relatively insensitive to trap distribution in a TFT. Source barrier lowering which occurs in SOI transistors is absent in a TFT, where the increase in current is the result of a held redistribution along the channel. For very short gate lengths, the TFT exhibits a small pseudo-bipolar gain. Estimates of this bipolar gain can be made by simulation of TFT characteristics with and without impact ionisation. The magnitude of the gain is shown to be approximately inversely proportional to gate length. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd