UDSM subthreshold leakage model for NMOS transistor stacks

In this paper, a new, analytical model for subthreshold leakage estimation in the ultra deep submicron (UDSM) realm is proposed. Most previous attempts at subthreshold leakage estimation in transistor stacks are not tailored for the UDSM realm and are based on either a look up table approach, and/or assume that all the transistors in the stack have a fixed width. The analytical estimation model proposed in this paper is capable of estimating subthreshold leakage in UDSM NMOS transistor stacks with different transistor widths. The model achieves this by estimating the stack nodal voltages. In this paper, transistor stacks of two, three and four transistors are considered.Compared to SPICE simulations using PTM's BSIM4 models, our analytical model achieved an average error of 8.1% for the one, two, three and four transistor stacks for 65, 45 and 32 nm CMOS process technologies. The model also exhibits significant runtime savings when compared with SPICE.