Performance analysis and modeling of deep trench decoupling capacitor for 32 nm high-performance SOI processors and beyond

Abstract

In this paper, we present a systematic performance study and modeling of on-chip deep trench (DT) decoupling capacitors for high-performance SOI microprocessors. Based on system-level simulations, it is shown that the DT decoupling capacitors (decap) offer significant area advantage over the other two conventional decoupling capacitors - Metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) and Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM). The fabrication process flow of DT decap is borrowed from regular eDRAM process and adds no additional process cost to processors that utilize large eDRAM cache [1]. We demonstrate that, with new process innovations such as introduction of High-k/metal gate and new plate doping methodology, there is significant reduction in equivalent series resistance (ESR) of the trench resulting in 3.5X improvement in half capacitance frequency for 32nm node. Further, with 22nm technology, improved ESR, DT Decaps performance is significantly enhanced, hence showing that DT-decaps can be reliably used for technology beyond 32nm. © 2012 IEEE.