{"id":989,"date":"2010-03-22T21:20:46","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T04:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/?p=989"},"modified":"2010-03-22T21:20:46","modified_gmt":"2010-03-23T04:20:46","slug":"how-to-connect-to-nano-devices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/?p=989","title":{"rendered":"How to connect to nano devices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The upcoming <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mrs.org\/s_mrs\/sec.asp?CID=25555&amp;DID=292646\" target=\"_blank\">Spring Materials Research Society (MRS) Meeting in San Francisco<\/a> will feature a separate \u201cNanocontact and Nanointerconnects Workshop\u201d to explore the biggest secret about the smallest devices: for the near-term there\u2019s nothing better than standard metal. The workshop will address both theoretical and experimental approaches to formation, carrier transport, and reliability, and so will also explore the long-term potential for novel materials and structures.<\/p>\n<p>Whether it\u2019s a quantum dot for memory, a self-assembled molecule for a switch, or a carbon-nanotube (CNT) sensor, it needs electrical connections for power and signals. As new materials with novel composition and geometry are explored, the underlying physics of contact\/interconnect formation and carrier transport needs to be re-examined.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mrs.org\/s_mrs\/sec.asp?CID=25929&amp;DID=315645\" target=\"_blank\">The scheduled speakers for the all-day event<\/a> are as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"> Stan Williams, HP Labs (plenary), Palo Alto, USA<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"> Paul S. Ho, University of Texas, Austin, USA<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"> Suzanne Mohney, Penn State University, USA<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"> Francois Leonard, Sandia National Labs, USA<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"> Juan Jose Palacios, Universidad de Alicante, Spain<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"> Richard Martel, University of Montreal, Canada<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"> Jon Pelz, Ohio State University, USA<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"> Ingann Chen, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"> Hanno H. Weitering, University of Tennessee\/Oakridge National Lab, USA<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the real world of high volume manufacturing (HVM) of nanoscale devices, the performance is typically gated by the interconnect. The speed of the switch is now generally faster than the time needed to get electrons to flow down the wire to the switch. The resolution of the sensor array is now limited by the shadows from the wires. Converting a signal between electrons and photons\u2014using detectors and laser diodes\u2014adds unacceptable delay. No one has found a room-temperature superconductor, and after decades of research there is not even a hint that one could exist. In all, <a title=\"BetaBlog coverage of IITC 2009\" href=\"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/?p=752\" target=\"_self\">there\u2019s nothing better than a 15nm copper contact<\/a> (<em>see figure<\/em>).<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_755\" style=\"width: 473px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/iitc2009_ibm_cucontact.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-755\" class=\"size-full wp-image-755 \" title=\"iitc2009_ibm_cucontact\" src=\"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/iitc2009_ibm_cucontact.jpg\" alt=\"SEM cross section of 15-16 nm Cu contacts post-anneal. There is no Cu diffusion through the Ru to the silicide, and no void formation. (source: IBM)\" width=\"463\" height=\"188\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-755\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SEM cross section of 15-16 nm Cu contacts post-anneal. There is no Cu diffusion through the Ru to the silicide, and no void formation. (source: IBM)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Just over two years ago at IEDM 2007 in Washington, D.C., an evening panel discussed \u201cLooking beyond silicon \u2013 a pipe dream or the inevitable next step?\u201d While most of the discussion had focused upon so-called \u201cMore than Moore\u201d devices (beyond silicon-based CMOS), one of the final conclusions was that interconnects appear to be our real limitation. \u201cThere is no new switch in sight,\u201d\u001d said Wilfried Haensch, IBM senior research manager. \u201cAll candidates are either non-manufacturable or they can not be wired up.\u201d\u001d<\/p>\n<p>So, any proposed new nanodevice must outperform CMOS, and for the near-term must rely upon the same connections as available to standard silicon CMOS. As the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.itrs.net\/Links\/2009ITRS\/Home2009.htm\" target=\"_blank\">International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) 2009 edition\u2019s<\/a> Emerging Research Devices (ERD) section mentions on page 23, \u201cAn accelerator that is offered as a CMOS replacement should offer a performance improvement relative to its CMOS implementation of an order of magnitude.\u201d To justify the R&amp;D costs and integration risks, any new conductor technology would likewise probably have to provide an order of magnitude improvement in performance.<\/p>\n<p>Christopher Case, ITRS Interconnect TWIG Chair (currently with Solid State Solutions), writes in the <a href=\"http:\/\/future-fab.com\/welcome.asp\" target=\"_blank\">January 2010 issue of Future Fab (special ITRS issue)<\/a> that Cu is expected to be our interconnect for at least the next 15 years. For any interconnect to complete with nanoscale copper contacts, Case reminds us that, \u201cthe goal is propagating terabits\/second at femtojoules\/bit.\u201d He provides an excellent overview of the inherent challenges in trying to improve upon copper contacts.<\/p>\n<p>As Case reminds us, from first principles of materials it seems that the only way to improve upon today\u2019s copper contacts is to eliminate the internal grain boundaries that induce electron scattering. We can grow CNTs or single-crystal metal fibers from nanoscale catalyst dots, but we\u2019re still only at the proof-of-concept stage. We\u2019ve discovered graphene, but we\u2019re still just beginning to learn about what we have yet to prove. If you attend the MRS Nanocontacts and Nanointerconnects Workshop in two weeks, you\u2019ll probably learn the lower size limits of what we can build today and most of tomorrow.<em>\u2014E.K.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The upcoming Spring Materials Research Society (MRS) Meeting in San Francisco will feature a separate \u201cNanocontact and Nanointerconnects Workshop\u201d to explore the biggest secret about the smallest devices: for the near-term there\u2019s nothing better than standard metal. The workshop will address both theoretical and experimental approaches to formation, carrier transport, and reliability, and so will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3,5,4,10,6,7],"tags":[197,36,333,173,325,467,466,97,468,332,469,76],"class_list":["post-989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-equipment","category-manufacturing-fabrication-line","category-flat-panel-display","category-integrated-circuit","category-material","category-micro-electro-mechanical-system","category-photovoltaic","tag-22nm","tag-cmos","tag-cnt","tag-cu","tag-fet","tag-flat-panel-display","tag-integrated-circuit","tag-memory","tag-micro-electro-mechanical-system","tag-nano","tag-photovoltaic","tag-rd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=989"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":994,"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989\/revisions\/994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.betasights.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}