report
8.8.3 Short description

Complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology has long been the key driver for microelectronics. The power of CMOS technology is based on its ability to carry out digital calculations while consuming very little electrical power.

While the development of CMOS technology is expected to continue well into the next decade, inevitably a point is reached where today's semiconductor circuits meet their physical limits. Economical limits to device scaling could be reached even before that. For this reason, it is essential to explore new ideas and alternative technologies in order to create novel computing devices capable of replacing CMOS technology in the 2020 or beyond timeframe.

The novel devices should show significant advantage over ultimate CMOS transistors in power, performance, density, and/or cost to enable the semiconductor industry to extend the historical cost and performance trends for information technology.

Two main approaches are used to develop technologies that would extend the functional scaling of information processing substantially beyond the "ultimately scaled" CMOS. One is heterogeneous integration of new technologies with the CMOS platform (functional diversification). The second is to develop fundamentally new approaches to information processing.

To meet these goals, the following main challenges have been defined as the critical research issues the US Nanoelectronic Research Initiative (NRI) (acknowledged in the ENIAC SRA):

• Developing alternative schemes to encode information (new logic devices) to enable computing at low power consumption
• Inventing and developing a new information processing technology
• Managing heat transfer more efficiently through phonon engineering

The main research topics include new principles of operation (devices utilizing new computational state variables beyond electronic charge), new architectures, new materials for interconnect technologies and  transistors (such as carbon nanotubes, nanowires or organic molecules), improved nanoscale thermal management and novel fabrication methods for these structures and circuits.

This report is structured according to the following categorisation:

New logic and information processing devices:

• Extensions to CMOS
• Alternative state variables
• Single electron transistors (SETs)
• Molecular devices
• Spin devices
• Ferromagnetic devices
• Nanophotonics

New functionalities:

• NEMS
• Molecular sensors
• Organic/plastic electronics

Architecture and system level:

• Emerging architectures
• Thermal management

Manufacturing and design:

• Bottom-up techniques
• Multiscale modeling and design tools

The contents of this report are based on two main references: The ENIAC Strategic Research Agenda (update 2007) and International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) (2007 Edition, Section on Emerging Research Devices).