Scaling SOI MESFETs to 150-nm CMOS technologies

Metalsemiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFETs) have been fabricated using a 150-nm partially depleted silicon-on-insulator complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Minimum gate lengths of 150 nm have been achieved, which represents a significant reduction compared with an earlier demonstration using a 350-nm CMOS technology. The scaled MESFETs with L_g = 150 nm have a current drive that exceeds 200 mA/mm with a peak f_T 35 GHz. This is considerably higher than the L_g = 400 nm MESFET with a current drive of ∼70 mA/mm and a peak f_T = 10.6 GHz, which was possible with the earlier generation. However, short-channel effects become significant for L_g < 400 nm, resulting in an optimum MESFET gate length for this technology in the range of 200300 nm.