SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 5, 2003 - Intel Corporation researchers have identified new materials to replace those that have been used to manufacture chips for more than 30 years. The breakthrough innovation is a significant accomplishment as the industry races to reduce electrical current leakage in transistors -- a growing problem for chip manufacturers as more and more transistors are packed onto tiny pieces of silicon.
Intel researchers have developed record setting, high-performance transistors using a new material, called high-k, for the "gate dielectric" and new metal materials for the transistor "gate". The gate is the part of the transistor that determines whether it is on or off and the gate dielectric is a thin insulator underneath it. Together, the new materials help to drastically reduce current leakage that causes reduced battery power and generates unwanted heat. Intel said the new high-k material reduces leakage by more than 100 times over the silicon dioxide used for the past three decades.
"The semiconductor industry has known for many years that heat and current leakage are fundamental barriers to maintaining the pace of Moore's Law if we rely on today's transistor materials and structures," said Sunlin Chou, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Technology and Manufacturing Group. "The challenge that the industry has faced for so long is the difficult identification and integration of new materials to replace silicon dioxide as it reaches its fundamental limits. Some have described this challenge as being the equivalent of a heart transplant for the chip."
According to Moore's Law, the number of transistors on a chip roughly doubles every two years, resulting in more features, increased performance and decreased cost per transistor. To keep this pace of innovation, transistors must continue to shrink to ever-smaller sizes. However, using today's materials, the ability to shrink transistors is reaching fundamental limits because of increased power and heat issues.
As a result, implementing new materials and innovative transistor structures is imperative to the future of Moore's Law.
The High-K and Metal Gate Solution
All transistors have an insulator material, called a gate-dielectric that is critical to its operation. For the last 30 years, silicon dioxide has served as the material of choice for this key transistor component because of its manufacturability and its ability to deliver continued transistor performance improvements at smaller sizes.
Intel has successfully scaled the silicon dioxide gate dielectric to sizes as small as 1.2 nanometers (nm) thick, which is equal to only five atomic layers. As the silicon dioxide material gets thinner, electric current leakage through the gate dielectric increases and leads to wasted current and unnecessary heat. To solve this critical issue, Intel plans to replace the current material with a thicker high-k material in the gate dielectric, significantly reducing current leakage.
The second part of the solution is the development of a metal gate material, since the high-k gate dielectric is not compatible with today's transistor gate. The combination of the high-k gate dielectric with the metal gate enables drastic reduction in current leakage while maintaining very high transistor performance, making it possible to drive Moore's Law and technology innovation well into the next decade.
Intel believes that these new discoveries can be integrated into an economical, high-volume manufacturing process, and is now moving this transistor research into the development phase.
Transistors with these new materials are an option targeted to be integrated into future Intel processors as early as 2007, as part of the company's 45-nm manufacturing process.
Intel will discuss details of the development of new transistor materials on Nov. 6 at the 2003 International Workshop on Gate Insulator in Tokyo. Intel's invited technical paper will outline the critical and timely challenge of developing and integrating new materials to address current leakage, power consumption, and heat issues by focusing on two significant breakthroughs: the identification of the correct "high-k gate dielectric" material to replace the silicon dioxide used today and the identification of metal materials to replace today's gate material that is compatible with the high-k gate dielectric
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