Development of core technology for reconfigurable FET based on bulk CMOS

Abstract

Although silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technologies can help improve the performance of semiconductor devices, they have drawbacks, including high manufacturing cost and low productivity. Dr Dongwoo Suh, Materials and Components Research Division, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, is working to overcome these limitations. His research concerns the development of core technology for reconfigurable field-effect transistors (RFETs) based on bulk complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) and he and his collaborators have developed a new technique that could help advance the field of semiconductor devices. In recent work, Suh and the team have applied an existing technique called epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO) to the development of reconfigurable transistors. The researchers were able to form a large, high-quality SOI layer on a silicon wafer by combining ELO with a conventional chemical vapour deposition (CVD) process. By doing this, the team created a growth process of crystalline semiconductor on amorphous substrate with applications to advanced silicon transistors. By combining ELO with reconfigurable transistors and their logic gates the researchers are maximising the potential that RFETs hold for electronics. They believe that their technique can be used in advanced silicon transistors to create more advanced transistors with desirable characteristics.