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This is a schematic picture of an NC-FET in which a CMOS-compatible ferroelectric HZO layer is part of the gate stack to achieve a negative capacitance in the gate stack and a transistor operation of less than 60 mV / dec. Credit: Peide D. Ye
Smartphones contain billions of tiny switches called transistors, which allow us to take on a myriad of tasks beyond phone calls: SMS sending, neighborhood browsing, snapshots and googled names. These switches involve an electrically conductive channel whose conductivity can be modified by a gate terminal separated from the channel by a dielectric film of 5 to 6 atoms thick.
According to Moore's law, transistors have been miniaturized for 50 years. The number of transistors on a chip can double every 18 months, while the cost is halved. But we have now reached the point where transistors can not continue to be scaled.
In the newspaper Applied Physics Letters, the researchers are looking at negative capacitance field effect transistors (NC-FETs), a new device concept suggesting that traditional transistors can be made much more efficient by simply adding a thin layer of ferroelectric material. If it works, the same chip could calculate much more, but would require a less frequent charge of its battery.
The physics of technology is being evaluated around the world, and in their paper the researchers summarize the most recent work on CN FETs and stress the need to consistently and coherently interpret the various experiences presented in the report. Literature.
"The NC FETs were originally offered by my colleague Professor Supriyo Datta and his graduate student Sayeef Salahuddin, who is now a professor at the University of California at Berkeley," said Muhammad Ashraful Alam, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University.
From the beginning, Alam found the concept of NC-FET intriguing, not only because it addressed the urgent problem of finding a new electronic switch for the semiconductor industry, but also because it served as a conceptual framework for a broad class of phases. transition devices collectively called "Landau switches".
"More recently, when my colleague and co-author, Peide Ye, began doing experimental demonstrations of these transistors, it was an opportunity to work with him to explore the deeply intriguing features of this device technology," said Alam. . "Our article summarizes our" theorist-experimenter "perspective on the subject."
Although hundreds of articles have been published on the subject, according to the researchers, the validity of the quasi-static AD and frequency reliability limits of the NC-FET are still the subject of intense debate.
If it is conclusively demonstrated and integrated into modern integrated circuits, the impact of NC-FET transistors will be transformer. "Given the potential, a systematic analysis of the device concept is needed," said Ye. "We found that data from various groups were very dispersed and that researchers used very different techniques to characterize their devices, which requires an integrated and comprehensive analysis of the existing data set."
The researchers hope that their work will bring the community together to suggest ways to move forward in a coordinated way towards the realization of this promising technology.
Explore further:
"Negative capacity" could bring more efficient transistors
More information:
Muhammad A. Alam et al., A critical review of recent advances in negative-capacitance field effect transistors, Applied Physics Letters (2019). DOI: 10.1063 / 1.5092684
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