Thin and thick gate oxide transistors on a functional block of a CMOS circuit residing within the core of an IC chip

US6642543B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignee

• The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University · US

Inventors

• Abbas El Gamal · Palo Alto, US
• Xinqiao Liu · Bellevue, US
• Sukhwan Lim · Suwon-si, KR

Key dates

• Filing date: Sep 26, 2000
• Grant date: Nov 4, 2003
• Expiry date: Sep 26, 2020

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H10D84/856

Abstract

A functional block for a CMOS circuit within the core of an integrated circuit chip and a method of making the same is disclosed. The functional block uses both thick and thin gate oxide transistors which reduces the leakage current and increases the voltage swing while permitting the device scaling in circuits made in CMOS technology. Within the functional block, the distance between a thick oxide transistor and a thin oxide transistor is chosen based on a transistor stability criterion. The thick and thin oxide transistors can be connected to identical or different voltage sources. Further, a transistor within a functional block can be chosen to be thick or thin oxide transistor based on a leakage current threshold or a voltage swing threshold.