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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

#41

Post by Aardwolf »

Hikikomori wrote: post #23
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…

https://youtu.be/NGFhc8R_uO4

That's super informative, much better than any other video or article I found, thanks!

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#42

Post by theamk »

justinlloyd wrote: post #31
thunderbird120 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

More than 20 years ago, I read about new FRAM/FeRAM chip that just got commercialized that was supposed to revolutionize non-volatile storage. And the specs were pretty good, definitely much better that flash.

And yet today, nothing came out of it. Sure, you can still buy FeRAM at digikey, and it found a niche or two by itself, but it is tiny, tiny piece of overall storage market.

I think that memristor is going to end up as FRAM and not as MEMS. It is cute, but even if it could be executed perfectly, it does not allow anything that more conventional technologies can do (unlike MEMS :) l

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#43

Post by tux1968 »

metadat wrote: post #36
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Steps 7, and especially 8, seem like magic without a good explanation of how they're possible.

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#44

Post by justinlloyd »

theamk wrote: post #42
justinlloyd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

More than 20 years ago, I read about new FRAM/FeRAM chip that just got commercialized that was supposed to revolutionize non-volatile storage. And the specs were pretty good, definitely much better that flash. And yet today, nothing came out of it. Sure, you can still buy FeRAM at digikey, and it found a niche or two by itself, but it is tiny, tiny piece of overall storage market. I think that memristor is going to e…

I remember FRAM now that you mention it. There's obviously a lot of promising technologies that die through poor marketing, poor adoption, price, better performing or cheaper alternatives. I see potential in memristors but I think the jury is still out on whether it will see marketplace success. I personally think it has huge upside potential but it sounds like both of us have seen all that be for nothing. I think my previous comment carries more weight though, because it has a pig on it.

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#45

Post by ggm »

justinlloyd wrote: post #18

There's a lot coming down the pipe in term of next-gen components in the SOI and 3D subthreshold world, ULP (ultra-low power), MEMS (pretty much everything you find in your phone these days, outside of the CPU itself), 3D integration, the problem is summarizing it in a neat little comment. Memristors are huge, and are going to be, huge-er still. World changing huge. Which ties in to new analogue design techniques. 3D…

Has there been an acronym shift? MEMS used to mean mechanical contrivances like dlp mirrors. Memristors are surely different?

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#46

Post by bippingchip »

tux1968 wrote: post #43
metadat wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Steps 7, and especially 8, seem like magic without a good explanation of how they're possible.

That’s because they skip quite a few steps. You would first deposit a photosensitive layer, then expose it wit a pattern of light, which will allow you to selectively open up the parts you want to toch next.

For step 7 for example, you create a masking layer that way, after which you etch away only the exposed parts where source and drain contacts will end up.

For step 8, you do something similar. The openings you’ve etched in step 8 will allow only to dope the contacts, but you need to mask the nmos and pmos separately, otherwise you get the same doping in both transistors.

A lot of the ‘magic’ to make this work is in the materials and chemistry: you need selectivity: etching that only interacts with the exposed parts. In highly scaled finfet nodes, the material combinations are very complex as you sometimes want 2, or 3 different material combinations to interact in the way you want, reliably, at nanometer scale.

(Edit finfet not finger)

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#47

Post by fnordpiglet »

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

Sorry, what’s a GaAs?

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#48

Post by Sakos »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #7

Rabbit hole diving on the makers of the machines that make chips: https://semiengineering.com/entities/asml/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM_International https://www.asml.com/en/company/about-asml/history From the last one, ca. 1988 ASML was failing badly: "But in a market of fierce competition and many suppliers, the small unknown company from the Netherlands couldn’t catch a break. ASML had few customers and was…

Crazy to think about where we'd be without ASML right now. Would another company have stepped up to fill the void? Or was there something unique about ASML that allowed them to reach EUV instead of anybody else?

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#49

Post by Taniwha »

justinlloyd wrote: post #18

There's a lot coming down the pipe in term of next-gen components in the SOI and 3D subthreshold world, ULP (ultra-low power), MEMS (pretty much everything you find in your phone these days, outside of the CPU itself), 3D integration, the problem is summarizing it in a neat little comment. Memristors are huge, and are going to be, huge-er still. World changing huge. Which ties in to new analogue design techniques. 3D…

In my experience memristors have been just about to be huge every year for the past 30

Re: What's different about next-gen transistors

#50

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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