Analysis of narrow width effects in polycrystalline silicon thin film transistors

In this study, narrow width effects of polycrystalline silicon thin film transistors (poly-Si TFTs) are investigated. With reducing channel width, TFT characteristics such as mobility, threshold voltage, and subthreshold swing are found to improve dramatically. To gain insight on the origin of the narrow width effects, a physically-based model is proposed to simulate the output characteristics of poly-Si TFTs. Excellent fitting with the experimental data is observed over a wide range of drain bias, gate bias, and channel width. Our model shows that both the deep state density and tail state density are reduced with reducing channel width, thus accounting for the improved TFT characteristics. In addition, subthreshold swings of poly-Si TFTs with various channel widths and lengths are compared. It is found that the subthreshold swings of poly-Si TFTs with the same channel area are identical, indicating that the grain-boundary trap density is reduced due to the reduction of channel area.