| Because the silicon process infrastructure is already in place and because of silicon's compatibility with current CMOS circuits, silicon nanodevices are positioned to become particularly important. Silicon Nanoelectronics examines recent developments of novel devices and materials that hold great promise for creating smaller and more powerful chips. Contributed by more than 20 leading researchers, the text offers extensive background information and considers issues such as quantum effects and ballistic transport and resonant tunneling in silicon nanotechnology. It also pays significant attention to the all-important silicon single electron transistors and the devices that utilize them.
The advances in ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI) technology mainly have been based on downscaling of the minimum feature size of complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) transistors. The limit of scaling is approaching and there are unsolved problems such as the number of electrons in the device’s active region. If this number is reduced to less than 10 electrons (or holes), quantum fluctuation errors will occur and the gate insulator thickness will become too small to block quantum mechanical tunneling, which may result in unacceptably large leakage currents. On the other hand, the recent evolution of nanotechnology may provide opportunities for novel devices, such as single-electron devices, carbon nanotubes, Si nanowires, and new materials, which may solve these problems. Utilization of quantum effects and ballistic transport characteristics also may provide novel functions for silicon-based devices. Among various candidate materials for nanometer scale devices, silicon nanodevices are particularly promising because of the existing silicon process infrastructure in semiconductor industries, the compatibility to CMOS circuits, and a nearly perfect interface between the natural oxide and silicon.
The goal of this book is to give an update of the current state of the art in the field of silicon nanoelectronics. This book is a compact reference source for students, scientists, engineers and specialists in various fields including electron devices, solidstate physics and nanotechnology. |
