Impact of Contact Resistance on the $f_T$ and $f_{\max}$ of Graphene Versus $\text{MoS}_2$ Transistors

A key challenge in making 2-D materials viable for electronics is reducing the contact resistance $\rho _C$ of the source and drain, which can otherwise severely curtail performance. We consider the impact of contact resistance on the performance of transistors made with single-layer graphene and $\text{MoS}_2$ , two of the most popular 2-D materials presently under consideration for radio-frequency (RF) applications. While our focus is on the impact of $\rho _C$ , we include the impact of all the device parasitics. We consider a device structure based on the 7-nm node of the ITRS and use the unity-current-gain and unity-power-gain frequencies ( $f_T$ and $f_{\max}$ ) found from quantum-mechanical simulations, ballistic for graphene and with scattering for $\text{MoS}_2$ , as indicators of RF performance. We quantify our results in terms of the values of $\rho _C$ needed to reach specific values of $f_T$ and $f_{\max}$ . In terms of peak performance (over all bias conditions), we show that graphene retains a significant edge over $\text{MoS}_2$ , despite graphene's poor output conductance, with $\text{MoS}_2$ only being able to bridge the gap if considerably better contact resistances can be realized. However, with the bias current restricted to a technologically relevant value, we show that graphene loses much of its advantage, primarily due to a reduction in its transconductance $g_m$ , and we show that $\text{MoS}_2$ can then meet or exceed the performance of graphene via the realization of contact resistances already achieved in multilayer structures. Our values of $f_{T}$ for short-channel devices (around the 7-nm ITRS node) are shown to be consistent with experimental data for present-day long-channel devices, supporting our approach and conclusions.