Effect of Body Biasing on the Energy-Delay Performance of Logic Relays

Abstract

The effect of the body bias voltage on logic relay performance is investigated. The switching hysteresis voltage, which sets a lower limit for the relay operating voltage, is experimentally found to decrease with increasing body bias voltage, due to reduced surface adhesive force. It is demonstrated that the switching energy of a relay can be reduced by body biasing, at a tradeoff of increased mechanical turn-ON delay. Simulations of nanoscale relay designs indicate that body biasing can be used to mitigate relay manufacturing challenges, while enabling ultralowvoltage (sub-100 mV) operation with relatively fast switching speed.Index Terms-Body bias, NEM relay, energy-delay, low-power, nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS).

Reducing adhesion energy of micro-relay electrodes by ion beam synthesized oxide nanolayers

“…For high endurance and good performance, we have used hard metals with high electrical conductivity, such as W and Ru, as contacting electrode materials in logic relays. 7 With a motivation to reduce the adhesion energy per unit area without dramatically reducing the relay on-state conductance, we show herein that ultra-thin metal-oxides (such as RuO 2 and WO x ) on Ru and W metal surfaces can significantly decrease adhesion energy, by up to an order of magnitude.…”

“…3,4 Several theoretical analyses and experimental works have been performed to design and demonstrate relays driven by piezoelectric, 2 electrostatic, 5 or magnetic forces 6 and to achieve lower operating voltage. 7 As all relays operate on the basic principle of formation and breaking of mechanical contacts, contact adhesion energy plays an important role in determining the performance and energy efficiency of a relay. 8,9 Studies also have been performed to understand the effects of contact area scaling and the dynamics of contact opening/closing.…”

“…8,9 Studies also have been performed to understand the effects of contact area scaling and the dynamics of contact opening/closing. [9][10][11] A general understanding gained from such analyses 7,11 is that the minimum energy needed to switch a relay is proportional to the contact adhesive force (F ad . ).…”

Energy-Delay Sensitivity Analysis of a Nanoelectromechanical Relay With the Negative Capacitance of a Ferroelectric Capacitor

“…If the spring constant reduces even further to cause the spring restoring force to become smaller than the adhesion force (i.e., kx d < F ad ), a stuck-on failure occurs. In this case, the electrodes of the movable beam and the fixed electrode do not fall apart [14]. Thus, there is a lower limit for the spring constant, which means that there is an upper limit for the beam length.…”

Single‐Contact, Four‐Terminal Microelectromechanical Relay for Efficient Digital Logic

“…In this paper, we present the first in‐plane, single‐contact electrostatic 4‐T relay to address these issues. We have fabricated prototypes with a 1.5 µm critical dimension with NCG coated contacts, and measured cycling and body biasing [ 20 ] where we change the pull‐in voltage of the relay by applying a bias voltage to the body terminal. We also demonstrate complex logic functionality, a 1‐to‐2 demultiplexer (DEMUX), using two interconnected devices.…”