The incredible shrinking transistor
Article Abstract:
Transistor technology is advancing rapidly and will soon allow designers to place 100 million CMOS transistors on a single chip. New lithography technologies support shorter channel lengths and lower operating voltages; engineers seek to apply such principles of scaling to increase switching speeds and reduce power dissipation. Power supply voltage must be reduced as channel lengths scales down, but threshold voltage cannot be scaled in proportion to the power supply voltage, instead decreasing exponentially with a logarithmic slope inversely proportional to the thermal energy. Power-supply and threshold-voltage choices largely govern CMOS performance. The newest generation of CMOS devices is fabricated with an 0.10 to 0.13-micron process requiring shallow trench isolation, gate oxides between 1.5 and 2 nanometers and n- and p-doped polysilicon gates for appropriate MOSFETs. Extensive design details for polysilicon gates are discussed.
Publication Name: IEEE Spectrum
Subject: Engineering and manufacturing industries
ISSN: 0018-9235
Year: 1999
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Happy birthday, Fairchild
Article Abstract:
Fairchild Semiconductor Corp started when William Shockley recruited some of the brightest young people in America after Shockley left AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories. The planar transistor was one of the company's inventions and the process used to create it laid the foundation of modern computing.
Publication Name: IEEE Spectrum
Subject: Engineering and manufacturing industries
ISSN: 0018-9235
Year: 2007
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