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ISSN: 0975‐0754
Volume 1, Issue 1, Pages 19‐23, 2009
Article
Nano CMOS
Malay Ranjan Tripathy, Member, SRB
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Jind Institute of Engineering and
Technology (JIET), Panipat Road, Jind – 126102, Haryana, India.
Email: malay@srb.org.in
Complementary metal‐oxide‐semiconductor (CMOS) has become major challenge to scaling and
integration. However, innovation in transistor structures and integration of novel materials are
needed to sustain this performance trend. CMOS variability in the scaling technology becoming
very important concern because of limitation of process control over statistical variability related
to the fundamental discreteness of charge and matter. Different aspects responsible for device
variability are discussed in this article. The challenges and opportunities of nano CMOS
technology are outlined here.
INTRODUCTION
Recent trends in scaled Complementary metal‐oxide‐semiconductor (CMOS) transistors, as mentioned by the
International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) [1] and represented in Moore’s law [2,3] has driven
the phenomenal success of the semiconductor industry, delivering larger, faster and, cheaper circuits. But as we
move to more atomistic dimensions, simple scaling eventually stops. The devices are smaller, but many aspects of
their performance deteriorate: leakage increases, gain decreases, and sensitivity to unavoidable small fluctuations
in the manufacturing process rises dramatically. Power and energy have become the key limiters on many new
designs. We can no longer rely on experience with a few “worst case” process corners to predict worst‐case
behavior for these technologies. Nothing is deterministic any longer: most relevant parameters are statistical;
many exhibit complex correlations and distressingly wide variances. The rising costs associated with fabricating
circuits in such scaled technologies only exacerbate these problems of predictability. Keeping in view of these
important facts we have outlined here some aspects of device variability, challenges of future scaled CMOS
technology and opportunities lies in coming decades of scaling and integration.
WHY CMOS?
This is very important to discuss why CMOS? What is really it? In general, “CMOS” refers to both a particular style
of digital circuitry design, and the family of processes used to implement that circuitry on integrated circuit (chips).
CMOS circuitry dissipates less power when static, and is denser than other implementations having the same
functionality. As this advantage has grown and become more important, CMOS processes and variants have come
to dominate, so that the vast majority of modern integrated circuit manufacturing is on CMOS processes.
The main principle behind CMOS circuits that allows them to implement logic gates is the use of p‐type and n‐type
metal‐oxide‐semiconductor field‐effect transistors to create paths to the output from either the voltage source or
ground. When a path to output is created from the voltage source, the circuit is said to be pulled up. On the other
hand, the circuit is said to be pulled down when a path to output is created from ground.
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A major advantage of CMOS technology is the ability to easily combine complementary transistors, n‐channel and
p‐channel, on a single substrate.
WHAT IS NANOTECHNOLOGY?
Nano now fascinates every body. It is really interesting and many wonder to come. Everywhere we started getting
to hear Nano. By the way what is Nano? Is it Tata’s common man vehicle Nano Car or Nano robots or Nano CMOS?
Nanotechnology is not new. Richard Feynman described beautifully on nanotechnology in his one of earlier
lectures during 1959 as “There’s Plenty of Room at Bottom” [4]. An approach to the Development of General
Capabilities for Molecular Manipulation in 1981, he built a framework for the study of devices that were able to
move molecular objects and position them with atomic precision.
Nano is a prefix meaning one‐billionth. In distance, a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. As illustration, a
human hair is 100,000 nanometer (nm) in width. A red blood cell measures approximately 5,000 nm across. Ten
hydrogen atoms, lined up side by side, if they were touching, would form a line roughly one nanometer in length.
What confuses the situation is that some define nanotechnology as anything below the size of one micron or 1000
nanometers. This definition is often used in mass media, but it is not scientifically accurate. But in scientific
domain the definition often used to be as nanotechnology a technology involving, at a minimum, all of the
following: research at the 1 to 100 nm range; creating and using structures that have novel properties because of
their small size; and the ability to control or manipulate at the atomic scale. Studies in nano‐scale become fully
complex. It involves advanced chemistry, biology, physics, computer science, and engineering. The properties of
nano‐scale materials are governed by laws of quantum physics, causing materials to display properties and
characteristics that would be considered by the laws of classic Newtonian physics.
INTRODUCTION TO NANO CMOS
Since the invention of solid state devices by Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley in 1947 [5], the microelectronics
industry have shown tremendous growth in terms of providing latest technology with improving cost,
performance, and power consumption. As a result, the microelectronics industry has driven transistor feature size
scaling from 10μm to 10 nm [6‐9] during the past 40 years. During these periods scaling merely achieved by
reducing feature size. But at times these changes have undergone some challenges. They are like the move from Si
bipolar to p‐channel metal‐oxide‐semiconductor (MOS), then to n‐channel MOS, and finally to CMOS planar
transistors in the 1980s. This CMOS technology remained dominant in the market since last 20 years.
Nano CMOS has brought many challenges for further scaling. Happy scaling era is now ending. It is widely
recognized that variability in device characteristics and the need to introduce novel device architectures represent
major challenges to scaling and integration for present and next generation nano‐CMOS transistors and circuits.
This will in turn demand revolutionary changes in the way in which future integrated circuits and systems are
designed. To tackle this problem strong links must be established between circuit design, system design and
fundamental device technology to allow circuits and systems to accommodate the individual behavior of every
transistor on a chip. Design paradigms must change to accommodate this increasing variability.
TECHNOLOGICAL TRENDS IN NANO CMOS
Miniaturization of devices is a continuous trend in the microelectronic industry [10,11]. With decreasing feature
size, the device cost decreases and its performance increases. This has led silicon microelectronics a transition to
the sub‐micrometer scale – nano‐scale silicon electronics. Many integrated‐circuit components in production today
consist of devices of nano scale size. These include molecular electronics, which utilize individual molecules in their
structure.
Scaling of transistor features made CMOS technology cheaper, larger and faster. However scaling devices towards
nanometer‐scale dimensions is rapidly exacerbating reliability problems in large‐scale integrated ICs. Power,
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M. R. Tripathy SRBmag, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 19‐23 (2009)
timing, short channel effect, variability and reliability are key challenges for CMOS integration and scaling. New
materials, process improvements and device engineering will come to the rescue, but as in the case of power, they
are not sufficient. As transistor get smaller, more power and heat dissipation issues develop. According to
researchers at Intel Corporation, “the primary challenge in doubling performance is power”. For an example,
reducing leakage power (heat) while adding more and smaller transistors (performance) into an even smaller
footprint is a great challenge. Additionally, fabrication methods are reaching limits in their ability to continue to
shrink components and devices further.
Another important aspect of enhancing performance of scaled transistor is gate oxide and junction depth. These
are scaled together along with gate length to avoid the short channel effects. In case of gate oxide various efforts
are being done to improve the quality of device. Sometime gate oxide is changed from silicon oxide to a much
more complex combination such as a stack of thin layers of oxide with a higher dielectric constant than SiO2 (high‐k
oxides), e.g. HfO2 and Hf silicates. Mean time the film deposition techniques are improved dramatically. The quality
of hafnia films grown on silicon as well as quality of interfaces with both silicon substrate and metal gate is seen to
be better. However, the performance of prototype high‐k transistors is still affected by large concentrations of
various defects. Oxygen vacancies and interstitial ions as well as grain boundaries and other defects in HfO2 and
SiO2 films and at HfO2/SiO2/Si interface are often implicated in causing problems and variability in device
performance.
MOORE’S LAW
Gordon Moore, the co‐founder of Fairchild Semiconductor that produced the first commercial integrated circuit in
1958, and the cofounder of Intel the semiconductor giant, describes the fantastic growth of this technology in
1965, which is now the foundation of a trillion‐dollar electronics industry. The empirical observation which
popularly known as Moor’s law [2, 3] explains the growth of component density and performance of integrated
circuits doubles every two years. Guided by the scaling rules set by Dennard [12] in 1974, smart optimization,
timely introduction of new processing techniques, device structures, and materials, Moore’s law has continued
unabated for 40 years. Tremendous advances in lithography and development of 45 and 32 nm node process
technologies and targets define to maintain more Moor’s law. With such small feature sizes in high volume
production and further scaling of CMOS technologies not only shows microelectronics entered in nanoelectronics
era but the device dimensions are now comparable to those being explored in the new field of bottom‐up
nanotechnology and molecular electronics.
SCIENTIFIC CHALLENGES
It is always believed that the key driver behind these trends is economics. Even though large increase in fabrication
cost the microelectronic industry is trillion dollars now. It promises still higher growth in coming years. But we are
not free from scientific challenges [13‐15] for further complex integration and scaling. Transistor scaling limits arise
from practical limits related to leakage current at small gate lengths. The problem at small gate length is that the
drain voltage reduces the barrier height even with the gate voltage off, which leads to undesirable, large off state
leakage. This phenomenon is known as drain‐induced barrier lowering and/or degraded short channel effect (SCE).
CMOS is best known for less power consumption device at least during off state. In present day high performance
logic technologies designed for microprocessors, the leakage power of CMOS transistors is approximately 20‐30 W
out of a total power budget of 100 W. The magnitude of leakage power is already at the practical limit since it
increases packaging cost and even more importantly, energy cost.
As scaling of CMOS is reaching its practical limitation in terms of size, various reliability issues are becoming
prominence in the present applications. Variability in transistor characteristics due to the fundamental
discreteness of charge and matter is one of scientific challenge in further scaling. Parasitic capacitance and
resistance are other challenges for the improvement of CMOS technology. The comparable parasitic resistance to
improved channel materials and technology is a great challenge on the efficiency of scaled devices.
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M. R. Tripathy SRBmag, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 19‐23 (2009)
Metal resistance is another challenge in scaled CMOS devices. As the cross sectional area of the wire decreases the
metal resistance increases due to exponential increase in resistivity. Reduced electron mobility due to surface
scattering plays a part in the increased resistivity. Narrow lines result in smaller grains, which cannot be
recrystallised into larger grains while encased in a narrow groove thus increasing the resistivity further. This
increased resistivity does not help to decrease scaled capacitance, which in turn gives rise to increase in delay in
local wiring even though the length of local wires is getting shorter.
In software designing always large cell ratio helps in providing acceptable yield in presence of fluctuation in
intrinsic parameters. Thus, variability already causes significant circuit and system challenges at a time when
design margins are shrinking, owing to lowered VDD and increased transistor count. In other hand, exponentially
increasing design difficulties along with the enormous logistic, computational and data management needs of
statistical design imposes a challenge in designing.
PROSPECTS TO REPLACE SILICON ELECTRONICS
CMOS scaling is approaching atomistic limits; various questions arise regarding the future of microelectronics, the
possibility of replacing Si CMOS transistors and time frame of new technologies. Even though these are difficult to
answer but it is important to attempt to do so because this affects trillion dollars worldwide industry and the
careers of most engineers.
To begin with if we retrospect issues on the basis of time taken for each level of changes of technology from
history it can be convinced that roughly five years is essential for each level of technological changes. For an
example one level technology can be like changes from bipolar to planar CMOS technology along with strained Si,
[16] high k‐dielectrics [17], computer architectures etc.
If we expect single‐electron transport or spintronics to replace Si CMOS technology, which involves changes that
affect multiple levels, may require 15‐20 years to replace existing technology. It involves multi level research and
development works on new product architecture, software to take advantage of their unique device attributes.
Since industry is a decade away to decide which new technology to pursue, then we can expect another 30 years
to wait to see any radical change of ongoing technology in the main stream applications.
On the other hand if we look for possible candidate to replace Si CMOS technology in future, it is quite difficult to
go around the issues here. First instances we can check the possible improvements with existing Si CMOS planar
technology. It is yes; we can still expect one order improvement in performance if and only if we invest few billion
dollars more in existing a trillion dollar invested technology since last 40 years. For second instances we can
consider non‐Si charge‐based devices such as Ge [18], III‐V, or carbon nanotube channels, which are yet to
estimate regarding the possible potential performance issues over Si CMOS devices. Never the less these are
promising areas need to be explored carefully for the improvement of future technology.
CONCLUSIONS
The trend of continuous scaled Si CMOS technology has approached physical limit. Even though another decade
will observe more Moore’s trend achieving few more technological nodes in planar CMOS technology. There are
many issues of variability in transistor characteristics and reliability of devices along with leakage power, parasitic
resistance and capacitance practically limits the growth of the existing technology. Moreover, the radical change of
CMOS technology will need changes along with much research and development works. It will require another 30
years to realize any remarkable developments in this area. However the existing Si CMOS planar technology is
seemed to be lucrative for immediate future of nanoelectronics.
REFERENCES
1. http://www.itrs.net
2. G. E. Moore, Electronics, Volume 38, Page 114, 1965.
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M. R. Tripathy SRBmag, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 19‐23 (2009)
3. G. E. Moore, Tech. Dig. IEDM, Volume 21, Page 11, 1975.
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