Sub-Nanometer Circuits Discovered a Decade Earlier than Expected
A research team from South Korea has announced achievements in semiconductor nanomaterials that could allow the creation of sub-nanometer chips. Learn more about the development and its potential ramifications for the tech sector.
- A research team at South Korea’s Institute for Basic Science has discovered a new technique for creating what is being called ‘one-dimensional’ nanomaterials.
- The method can reportedly generate metallic semiconductor materials with widths as little as 0.4 nanometers.
Researchers from the Korean Institute for Basic Science (IBS) have developed a method to create sub-nanometer semiconductor logic circuits. The team claims the method will create one-dimensional metallic materials with a width of as little as 0.4 nm. Such tech will allow the development of advanced 2D ultra-miniaturized transistors.
Creating such transistor devices comes with technical challenges, particularly lithographic resolution. The Korean research team, however, has circumvented this issue by using a mirror twin boundary (MTB) of molybdenum disulfide as a gate electrode. This was done by achieving control of the semiconductor crystal structure at an atomic level.
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The breakthrough is important as it exceeds the predictions of the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems (IRDS), which stated that semiconductor node technology would reach around 0.5 nm only by 2037. Due to their narrow width, the new transistors are also said to reduce parasitic capacitance.
Leading chip manufacturers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Samsung Electronics, use only a 3 nanometer process and are researching 2nm processes. If successfully implemented at scale, the technology will become critical for high-performance, low-power electronic devices for the foreseeable future.
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