A Test-Structure To Efficiently Study Threshold-Voltage Variation in Large MOSFET Arrays

Nigel Drego,  Anantha Chandrakasan,  Duane Boning
MIT


Abstract

A test-structure comprising a dual-slope integrating analog-to-digital converter, auto-zeroing circuitry, digital control logic and a large array of Devices Under Test (DUTs) has been developed to isolate threshold voltage variation.. Threshold-voltage (VT) isolation is achieved by testing all DUTs in the subthreshold regime where drain-to-source current is an exponential function of VT. Spice simulations show that the structure is at least an order of magnitude more sensitive to VT variation than to channel length variation. This, in combination with a hierarchical access scheme and leakage control system, allows efficient characterization of delta VT for ~70,000 NMOS and ~70,000 PMOS devices in a dense 2mm x 2mm DUT array.