A physical, compact, short-channel threshold voltage model for undoped double-gate MOSFETs has been extended through a phenomenological approach to include the fringe-induced barrier lowering (FIBL) effect associated with high-permittivity (high-k) gate dielectrics. The resulting analytical model closely describes published numerical simulations over a wide range of device/material parameters. Exploiting the new device model, a concerted analysis combining FIBL-enhanced short-channel effects and gate direct tunneling current is performed on candidate high-k gate dielectrics to assess their overall impact on DG MOSFET scaling. It is projected that high-k gate dielectrics may extend DG MOSFET scaling beyond that with SiO2 by 10-20% for a 2-3x smaller equivalent oxide thickness of high-k dielectrics than that of SiO2. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.