Thermal Noise Measurement and Characterization for Modern Semiconductor Devices

Thermal noise in electronic devices sets the fund amental limitation for receiver front ends [1], analog [2], mixed-signal [3], and even digital circuits [4] for their signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) [5], dynamic range, data acquisition rate, and power consumption. Therefore, thermal noise becomes particularly important for emerging applications such as quantum computing (QC) [6] for its qubits' sensitivity and weak signal strength. It is expected that thermal noise will become a hindrance to these emerging applications due to thermal-noise-induced false bit-flips [7]. Therefore, it is crucial to characterize the thermal noise and understand its physical origin in nanoscale devices. These provide insights for material scientists, process engineers, and circuit designers to optimize their devices and circuits' noise performance so that the social and economic advantages offered by the advances in semiconductor technologies can continue.