What is the state of nanotechnology in creating semiconductors?\u00a0 As the size of the individual semiconductor components shrink, the current material employed starts to create concerns.\u00a0 Projections have been made for incorporating nanomaterials, like conductive carbon nanotubes, for interconnects between levels of the semiconductor circuits.<\/p>\n
Note to readers about semiconductor manufacturing.\u00a0 There are many levels (layers) in a single semiconductor.\u00a0 The transistors are the basic individual device and consists of a combination of materials that permit a specific charge to change its state to either permit electron flow or not.\u00a0 To interconnect one transistor to another requires some conductive material.\u00a0 With billions of transistors on a single integrated circuit, there are many levels on interconnects required.\u00a0 To provide the conductive path for the current required connecting one level to another level, possibly tens of layers removed.\u00a0 [Ref. #1]\u00a0 Currently materials, like tungsten, are employed.<\/p>\n
The issue with employing carbon nanotubes is that conducting nanotubes would be required to fill each of the desired connects.\u00a0 Current carbon nanotube manufacturing technology can not produce only conducting nanotubes with a yield of parts per billion.\u00a0 Even if the desired yield could be produced, how would the nanotube be placed in the correct location?<\/p>\n
There is work being done on using graphene with germanium [Ref. #2].\u00a0 It appears to be able to form smooth ribbons with curved surfaces.<\/p>\n
Directed self-assembly (DSA) of interconnects is being developed.\u00a0 The critical issues are both placement and defect identification.\u00a0 There should be some development along these lines in the next two years.<\/p>\n
Another approach is to employ semiconducting nanowires.\u00a0 [Ref. #3]\u00a0 These structure provide unique characteristics of the materials.\u00a0 One of the challenges in using these structures is the requirement for placement.\u00a0 Based on some of the work currently being done, it is possible to have these structures placed on a regular pattern or grid.\u00a0 Employing the interconnecting levels as currently being done could provide a possible means to go forward.<\/p>\n
Currently, the design of transistors is moving to have more of a vertical component.\u00a0 Employing vertical nanowires (nanotubes) could be a further step in this direction.\u00a0 It would be possible to mass produce the transistors as done today, which assumes the yield of the correct type will be possible.\u00a0 One large problem is still placement of the devices.\u00a0 I have seen 100nm vertical nanowire grids created.\u00a0 The possibility exists of getting that values down to 10nm.\u00a0 Even at 10nm, the long term needs may not be satisfied.<\/p>\n
Conclusions:\u00a0 Nanomaterials are being investigated for applications in semiconductors.\u00a0 The work that is being done has not yet provided solutions for the high volume production required for the existing state-of-the-are devices.<\/p>\n
The above commentary is focused on semiconductor circuitry.\u00a0 There are efforts addressing the solar energy arena that are incorporating nanotechnology and improving the performance of the photovoltaic cells.\u00a0 There is additional efforts in quantum computing that are in their infancy.\u00a0 It will be interesting to observe what direction these efforts and how they can be commercialized.<\/p>\n
References:<\/p>\n
What is the state of nanotechnology in creating semiconductors?\u00a0 As the size of the individual semiconductor components shrink, the current material employed starts to create concerns.\u00a0 Projections have [..]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nano","category-semiconductor-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}