Graphene—the 2D hexagonal lattice of carbon—has been under investigation as a new material for electronics applications due to it’s high mobility and other unique properties. At IEDM this year, an entire session (#23) was devoted to showcasing graphene devices, and to sharing the latest processing tricks to grow and (sometimes) transfer the single-atomic-layer of carbon […]

At the SEMICON West 2009 Device Scaling TechXPOT, moderated by this editor, SEMATECH’s Ray Jammy reviewed the latest results in scaling CMOS transistors. “We are litererally running out of atoms,” explained Jammy. “You can see the number of atoms in a gate dielectric.” When you have such thin layers, how do you control device parameters? […]