Nanoscale Device Technology

This book takes readers through historical development of electronics to future candidates for logic and memory applications. It covers various versions of basic solid-state devices, the development strategies of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), the potential of single molecules in logic and memory applications, etc.

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Nanoscale Device Technology presents an overview of how the electronic components that drive all modern technology have changed since their invention in the nineteenth century. It takes readers through the historical development of electronics, from the discovery of a vacuum tube as an electron device to future candidates for logic and memory applications.

The book first explains how electronics developed as an independent subject after it originated from electricity. It next covers the emergence of solid-state electronic devices, including field-effect transistors (FETs), as well as logic circuits and electronic memories. It then discusses the international efforts to manufacture smaller devices in chip design to reduce costs and improve performance.

The book goes on to examine the improvements in lithography and alternate methods of carving smaller devices in the top-down process. It also explains how to avoid performance degradation in small metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs), presents alternatives to MOSFET that can be used for MOSFET-like performance in very small devices aimed at later-stage solutions to the scaling issue, and describes structures with diode- or transistor-like switching behavior exhibited by single molecules. The book concludes with an introduction to tools, such as optical tweezers, for transporting extremely small particles or molecules.

Due to nanotechnology, microchips containing semiconductor components are poised to undergo a major transformation in the near future. Nanoscale Device Technology explores how this innovation will have a major impact on the electronics we use daily.