Transformation: nanotechnology\u2014challenges in transistor design and future technologies

Bianka Ullmann,Tibor Grasser

doi:10.1007/s00502-017-0534-y

Abstract

The transistor is one of the key inventions of modern society which have paved the way for innovative technologies being so ubiquitous in everyday life. Due to their economic importance and the pressure to keep production costs low while simultaneously increasing efficiency, transistors have been scaled to the deca-nanometer regime during the last decades. This excessive downscaling of device dimensions has now reached several physical limits, whereby transistor design and fabrication have been challenged numerous times. Although some of these challenges have been overcome by the use of new materials and cleverly designed device geometries, a lot of additional effort must be put into the research of innovative nanotechnologies in order to open up for new opportunities. In this work, we summarize recent developments in transistor technology and give a short overview of possible future technologies.

Highlights

More than 200 years ago the origin of electricity was analyzed for the first time and throughout this process the way to more revolutionary technological inventions has always been enabled by an enhanced insight into the physical process of electric charge manipulation
As a consequence of the complexity increase, transistors have been downscaled to the deca-nanometer regime during the past decades, which has resulted in severe reliability issues, power loss and instabilities as the physical limits are approached
The pressure on industry to keep the production costs for highefficiency electronic devices low has led to an excessive downscaling of the most important part in digital circuits, the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET)

Summary

Introduction

More than 200 years ago the origin of electricity was analyzed for the first time and throughout this process the way to more revolutionary technological inventions has always been enabled by an enhanced insight into the physical process of electric charge manipulation. As a consequence of the complexity increase, transistors have been downscaled to the deca-nanometer regime during the past decades, which has resulted in severe reliability issues, power loss and instabilities as the physical limits are approached.

Results

Conclusion