Efficient Monte Carlo device modeling

A single-particle approach to full-band Monte Carlo device simulation is presented which allows an efficient computation of drain, substrate and gate currents in deep submicron MOSFETs, In this approach, phase-space elements are visited according to the distribution of real electrons. This scheme is well adapted to a test-function evaluation of the drain current, which emphasizes regions with large drift velocities (i.e., in the inversion channel), a substrate current evaluation via the impact ionization generation rate (i.e., in the LDD region with relatively high electron temperature and density) and a computation of the gate current in the dominant direct-tunneling regime caused by relatively cold electrons (i.e, directly under the gate at the source well of the inversion channel). Other important features are an efficient treatment of impurity scattering, a phase-space steplike propagation of the electron allowing to minimize self-scattering, just-before-scattering gathering of statistics, and the use of a frozen electric field obtained from a drift-diffusion simulation. As an example an 0.1-mu m n-MOSFET is simulated where typically 30 minutes of CPU time are necessary per bias point for practically sufficient accuracy.