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What's different about next-gen transistors

semiengineering.com

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Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#31

Post by justinlloyd »

thunderbird120 wrote: post #28
modeless wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memristors aren't huge yet, are they? Don't they have wear issues? Who is working on them?

They're definitely not huge right now and I haven't seen any viable paths toward them becoming a big thing any time in the near future. There's barely any work being put into them relative to other stuff in the field. HP made some big claims years back but have totally failed to deliver anything and I haven't heard anything about the technology in years.

Prior to the pandemic I had the privilege, due to my wife's position, of attending five or so IEEE conferences per year in the subject of microelectronics and got to see a lot the small enhancements. 15 years ago MEMS and SOI was all the rage, and it moved at glacial pace, and "nothing was coming of it." Now you cannot pick up a modern smartphone without having most of those small developments packed inside it. It's frustrating in one way, seeing the cute piglet of a fringe idea entering the pipe, and wondering if it will come to aught, and astounding to finally put the metaphorical sausage of productization in your mouth many years later thinking to yourself "Oh, I had forgotten all about that..." I use the food metaphor because my wife used to work in market research (prior to her career in running 30,000+ attendee conventions and highly technical microelectronics conferences for the IEEE) and those tasty MSG-laden noodles we all devoured on a student's grocery budget took years of refinement through market testing before they became a real product available universally everywhere.

   ^---^
  ( 'o' )
  ( u u )

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#32

Post by kens »

justinlloyd wrote: post #27
ABeeSea wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like memresistors have been hyped since HP tried to use it to save their business from 2007-2015. Nothing ever came from it from HP at least. Have there been new developments that make it more likely to be viable?

A lot of technology that's out at the fringes will often be hyped up by a marketing department. It is the culinary equivalent of telling everyone how awesome the soup is going to taste just as the cook is returning from the grocery store with the unprepared, raw ingredients. We're edging closer to the "needs seasoning." There's always some company trying to sell something that doesn't really exist in a production for…

I'll point out that transistors were invented in 1947 and the computer industry made the switch from vacuum tubes to transistors around 1958. Integrated circuits were invented in 1958 and the computer industry switched to them around 1965. My point is that historically the computer industry has been able to switch to a completely new technology a decade after it's invented. HP's memristors have been around for 15 years and haven't made much impact.

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#34

Post by Throwawayaerlei »

kens wrote: post #32
justinlloyd wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of technology that's out at the fringes will often be hyped up by a marketing department. It is the culinary equivalent of telling everyone how awesome the soup is going to taste just as the cook is returning from the grocery store with the unprepared, raw ingredients. We're edging closer to the "needs seasoning." There's always some company trying to sell something that doesn't really exist in a production for…

I'll point out that transistors were invented in 1947 and the computer industry made the switch from vacuum tubes to transistors around 1958. Integrated circuits were invented in 1958 and the computer industry switched to them around 1965. My point is that historically the computer industry has been able to switch to a completely new technology a decade after it's invented. HP's memristors have been around for 15 yea…

If you look at IBM's history you can see how reliability and the ability to manufacture components in quantity played a huge role in the adaptation of both. Bell Lab's early point contact ones weren't manufacturable. IBM didn't move to proper ICs until 1970 with the System/370 because anything they made including the low end would be sold in quantities too high for ICs before then (System/360 Models 85 and 195 preceded the 370s by 1-2 years, but they only sold 60 total units).

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#36

Post by metadat »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #14
Aardwolf wrote: post #10

Random semi related question about chip making: AFAIK CPU's have multiple layers, not just a single silicon layer of transistors. And also, making transistors involves doping the silicon with other elements. And lithography is about shining a laser through a mask. And all this starting from an already cut silicon wafer. So how are the multiple layers done, if light is shined on the surface, how do you reach the other…

You can only ever reach exposed surfaces. This means a very complex sequence of adding and removing layers to expose/hide things so that the currently exposed surface features are what you want to change in the current processing step. The Wikipedia article on CMOS has a very nice illustration of the basic steps of this process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMOS#/media/File:CMOS_fabricat... Current processes are muc…

Wow, that's a remarkably informative image, thank you @ThrowawayR2.

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#37

Post by ip26 »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #35

“”” Whatever the future holds, it’s clear that the industry is in no hurry to abandon silicon, despite the theoretical advantages of alternative materials. “”” Such as? What a frustrating way to leave us dangling.

Usually the alternatives switch much faster, such as GaAs

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#38

Post by db48x »

hinkley wrote: post #2

Are we ever going to circle back to the notion of creating circuits that can hold more than 2 states? We seem to be doing that for SSDs but not for logic. Or has the space already been explored and there's nothing there?

Every digital circuit already has three states: floating, source, and sink.

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#39

Post by kayson »

ip26 wrote: post #37
fnordpiglet wrote: post #35

“”” Whatever the future holds, it’s clear that the industry is in no hurry to abandon silicon, despite the theoretical advantages of alternative materials. “”” Such as? What a frustrating way to leave us dangling.

Usually the alternatives switch much faster, such as GaAs

But they are harder and/or more expensive. That being said, they certainly don't have anywhere close to the amount of investment and research so there's probably some room to close the gap.

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#40

Post by gtirloni »

Throwawayaerlei wrote: post #34
kens wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll point out that transistors were invented in 1947 and the computer industry made the switch from vacuum tubes to transistors around 1958. Integrated circuits were invented in 1958 and the computer industry switched to them around 1965. My point is that historically the computer industry has been able to switch to a completely new technology a decade after it's invented. HP's memristors have been around for 15 yea…

If you look at IBM's history you can see how reliability and the ability to manufacture components in quantity played a huge role in the adaptation of both. Bell Lab's early point contact ones weren't manufacturable. IBM didn't move to proper ICs until 1970 with the System/370 because anything they made including the low end would be sold in quantities too high for ICs before then (System/360 Models 85 and 195 preced…

So memristors are almost here, is that what you're saying?
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