BTBT Transistor Scaling: Can they be Competitive with MOSFETs?

The authors analysis shows the significant challenges facing the development of TFETs. Our simulation results show that it is unlikely that Si TFETs will be able to achieve the necessary ON-current to compete with MOSFETs. The exponential drain characteristic is a problem fundamental to TFET structures demonstrated so far. Overcoming this problem will require device improvements and more efficient tunneling materials to achieve higher ON-currents. It may also be possible to engineer novel BTBT based devices without exponential drain voltage characteristics, but doing so while also achieving steeper than 'kT/q' subthreshold slope will be difficult.