Unveiling the Scaling Potential of Drain Merge through Active (DMtA) in CFETs: Breaking the Super-Via Bottlenecks and Unlocking New PPA Boosters
Abstract
Drain merge (DM), a super via vertically connecting the common S/D terminals of stacked n/pFETs in Complementary FETs (CFETs), blocks further parasitic optimization and cell scaling. For the first time, this work systematically investigates the state-of-the-art Drain Merge through Active (DMtA), a revolutionary technology reported recently with the DM embedded in the active region, through a comprehensive DTCO framework spanning process integration, contact-configuration-dependent (CTCD) compact modeling, standardcell design, RO evaluation and block-level PPA benchmark on a 32-bit RISC-V Ibex core. By reducing DM parasitics and enabling DM-width optimization, DMtA improves RO frequency by 11.7% over its conventional Drain Merge through field (DMtF) counterpart. Active widening and Area Borrowing, the latter first reported in [8] and exploiting spatial slack in adjacent cells to further enlarge the nanosheet width (WNS), increase the maximum Ibex-core frequency by up to 34.8%. More importantly, DMtA also enables the once GAA-exclusive Hyper-cells on CFETs by merging the active regions across adjacent cell rows, providing a further 8.7% frequency gain. A post-routing floating-output-pin-aware optimization further removes redundant S/D contacts (CTs) and reduces power by 5.3%. Finally, DMtA facilitates more area-efficient 2.5T cell scaling by preserving single-row cell compatibility, reducing post-PR core area by 25.7%.
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BibTeX
@misc{jiang2026unveiling,
title = {{Unveiling the Scaling Potential of Drain Merge through Active (DMtA) in CFETs: Breaking the Super-Via Bottlenecks and Unlocking New PPA Boosters}},
author = {Jingru Jiang and Haoran Lu and Kairong Guo and Yibo Zhang and Yifei Chen and Wanyue Peng and Yu Liu and Jiacheng Sun and Xiaoyan Xu and Ming Li and Yibo Lin and Runsheng Wang and Ru Huang and Heng Wu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.07329},
eprint = {2609.07329},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.07329},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Unveiling the Scaling Potential of Drain Merge through Active (DMtA) in CFETs: Breaking the Super-Via Bottlenecks and Unlocking New PPA Boosters
AU - Jingru Jiang
AU - Haoran Lu
AU - Kairong Guo
AU - Yibo Zhang
AU - Yifei Chen
AU - Wanyue Peng
AU - Yu Liu
AU - Jiacheng Sun
AU - Xiaoyan Xu
AU - Ming Li
AU - Yibo Lin
AU - Runsheng Wang
AU - Ru Huang
AU - Heng Wu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/07
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.07329
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.07329
AB - Drain merge (DM), a super via vertically connecting the common S/D terminals of stacked n/pFETs in Complementary FETs (CFETs), blocks further parasitic optimization and cell scaling. For the first time, this work systematically investigates the state-of-the-art Drain Merge through Active (DMtA), a revolutionary technology reported recently with the DM embedded in the active region, through a comprehensive DTCO framework spanning process integration, contact-configuration-dependent (CTCD) compact modeling, standardcell design, RO evaluation and block-level PPA benchmark on a 32-bit RISC-V Ibex core. By reducing DM parasitics and enabling DM-width optimization, DMtA improves RO frequency by 11.7% over its conventional Drain Merge through field (DMtF) counterpart. Active widening and Area Borrowing, the latter first reported in [8] and exploiting spatial slack in adjacent cells to further enlarge the nanosheet width (WNS), increase the maximum Ibex-core frequency by up to 34.8%. More importantly, DMtA also enables the once GAA-exclusive Hyper-cells on CFETs by merging the active regions across adjacent cell rows, providing a further 8.7% frequency gain. A post-routing floating-output-pin-aware optimization further removes redundant S/D contacts (CTs) and reduces power by 5.3%. Finally, DMtA facilitates more area-efficient 2.5T cell scaling by preserving single-row cell compatibility, reducing post-PR core area by 25.7%.
ER -