Estimation of Threshold Voltage in SiC Short-Channel MOSFETs

In this brief, the influence of high-density traps at the SiO2/SiC interface on short-channel effects was investigated, and a model describing channel length dependence of the threshold voltage (i.e., the gate voltage at a given drain current) is proposed. First, we determined the densities of interface states and fixed charge in 4H-SiC n-channel MOSFET by fitting the calculated gate characteristics to the experimental data, and acquired the density of trapped electrons from the obtained results. Then, we calculated the threshold voltage by considering that the majority of the trapped electrons are emitted near the drain end due to formation of a depletion layer. The channel length dependence of the threshold voltage calculated by the proposed model showed a good agreement with the experimental results even when the definition of threshold voltage was changed. The present model taking account of the fixed charge and of the trapped electron charge enables the estimation of the threshold voltage in the 4H-SiC short-channel MOSFETs.