1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an FET (field effect transistor) characteristic measurement method in which a pulse voltage output from a pulse generator is applied to the gate of an FET in order to measure drain current flowing through the FET. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method for accurately measuring a voltage applied to the drain of the FET and the drain current.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, the IV (current-voltage) characteristics of an FET are determined by applying a predetermined DC voltage to the gate of the FET while a predetermined bias voltage is applied to the drain of the FET.
However, the known approach in which the DC voltage is applied to the gate has the following problems.
When the known measurement approach is used for measuring the IV characteristics of SOI (silicon on insulator) MOSFETs, strained-silicon MOSFETs, or the like, reliable measurement results of the IV characteristics may not be obtained due to a self-heating phenomenon of the FETs.
When the known measurement approach is used for measuring the IV characteristics of MOSFETs using high-k (high dielectric constant) gate insulators, reliable measurement results of the IV characteristics may not be obtained since electrons are trapped in defects in the insulator films, thus reducing the drain current driving force.
Accordingly, it has been proposed to apply a measuring method in which a short-duration pulse is applied to the gate of the FET (e.g., refer to K. A. Jenkins and J. Y-C. Sun, IEEE Electron Device Letters, Vol. 16, No. 4, April 1995, pp. 145 to 147). With such a measuring method, measurement results that are not affected by the self-heating can be obtained for MOSFETs employing SOI and strained silicon. Furthermore, with respect to MOSFETs using high-k gate insulators, IV characteristics that are close to these under actual operational conditions can be obtained (since microprocessors using the MOSFETs have internal circuits driven by pulses, not DC), without being affected by, for example, a reduction in a drain-current driving force caused by electron trapping in insulator defects.
When the measurement method using short-duration pulses is employed, a so-called bias tee is used. An DC (direct current) input of the bias tee is connected to a DC voltage source, a bias output of the bias tee is connected to the drain of an FET, and an AC output of the bias tee is connected to an input of a measuring apparatus, such as an oscilloscope. When the short-duration pulse is input to the gate of the FET, drain current generated in a pulsed manner is input to the measuring apparatus via the AC output of the bias tee and the current is then converted by the input impedance of the measuring apparatus into a voltage.
From a high-frequency point of view, the input impedance of the measuring apparatus acts as a shunt resistor interposed between the drain of the FET and the DC voltage source. Thus, when the drain current is generated, the drain bias voltage of the FET decreases because of a voltage drop caused by the input impedance. In a measuring system including the bias tee, the FET, and the measuring apparatus, a drop in the drain bias voltage can also occur because of impedance due to other elements, such as cables.
However, in the known measuring method, the value of the drain bias voltage corresponding to a measured drain current is regarded as the value of a voltage output from the DC voltage source during the measurement of the drain current (i.e., is regarded as the value of the bias output voltage of the bias tee), that is, a voltage drop caused by the input impedance of the measuring apparatus and so on is not taken into account. Therefore, the measured drain current is not based on an actual bias voltage of the drain terminal, thus causing a problem in that accurate measurement results of IV characteristics cannot be obtained.
In addition, in the known measuring method, the drain current may not be accurately detected because of current leaking from the bias tee and so on, thus making it difficult to obtain accurate measurements results of IV characteristics.