Method of characterizing and modeling leakage statistics and threshold voltage

A computer program product for determining leakage current, the computer program product comprising a computer usable storage medium having program code embodied in the storage medium, the program code readable/executable by a computing device to:

• identify a nominal or average or median electrical effective width Wnom (e.g., Wnom=Wdes+dw) of a single finger device that has a design width Wdes;
• insert an uplift factor Uplift(Wnom) as a multiplier into a statistical leakage current model for the single-finger device;
• use expression σuncor(Wnom) in the statistical leakage current model as a standard deviation of uncorrelated threshold voltage variations;
• adjust Uplift(Wnom) and σuncor(Wnom) such that two averages of leakage current are identical and two standard deviations of leakage current are the same when the statistical leakage current model is used in different approaches;
• and
• use the identifying, inserting, using and adjusting steps in manufacturing an integrated circuit chip.

A system comprising:

• a CPU and a computer readable memory;
• first program instructions to derive an uplift factor as a function of a width of a single-finger semiconductor device for each leakage current component based on an amount of uncorrelated random variations in the leakage current component for one specific width of the semiconductor device and use the uplift factor as a multiplier for the leakage current component;
• second program instructions to use the uplift factor for sub-threshold drain current as a multiplier of the sub-threshold drain current so that a lowering of nominal threshold voltage of the single-finger device occurs in a single simulation run when the semiconductor device is a single-finger transistor;
• third program instructions to derive a threshold voltage mismatch expression which is related to an amount of an uncorrelated random variation in sub-threshold drain current and which is not directly inversely proportional to a square root of the width of the single-finger device;
• and
• fourth program instructions to use the uplift factors and the threshold voltage mismatch expression within a model to predict at least statistical characteristics of the leakage currents,
• wherein the first through fourth program instructions are used in manufacturing an integrated circuit chip, and
• wherein the program instructions are executed by the CPU via the computer readable memory.