The Semiconductor Industry's Nanoelectronics Research Initiative: Motivation and Challenges

Abstract

In recent generations of CMOS technology, exponentially increasing power density due to leakage currents as well as active switching energy is limiting our ability to reap the historical benefits of continued scaling. As the ultimate limits to CMOS scaling are getting closer, completely new approaches in emerging areas in electronics at the nanoscale need to be explored. The Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI) was chartered in 2005 by a consortium of Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) member companies to develop and administer a university-based program to address this issue. This paper will give an overview of some of the challenges that led to the formation of NRI, and an overview of the kind of research being pursued to extend the cost and performance trends for information technology.