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IBM, Samsung jointly develop
Intel shows (from 31) VTFET — will boost Moore’s Law
come the limitations of conventional silicon ALBANY, N.Y. — In 1965, Intel co-
channels, enabling millions more transis- founder Gordon Moore first hypoth-
tors per die area for evermore powerful esized that the number of transistors
computing in the next decade. and other components in a dense inte-
grated circuit would double as would
Integrating GaN and Si the the speed and capacity of comput-
More efficient power technologies are ers roughly every two years.
advancing through the world’s first inte-
gration of GaN-based power switches with Transistors reaching limit
silicon-based CMOS on a 300 mm wafer. But over 55 years later, the number of
transistors that can be crammed onto a
This sets the stage for low-loss, high- single chip has just about reached its limit.
speed power delivery to CPUs while simul-
taneously reducing motherboard compo- At the same time, the road ahead for
nents and space. computing systems isn’t slowing down.
Dynamic AI systems are poised to super-
Another advancement is Intel’s low-latency charge so many aspects of our lives —
read/write capabilities using novel ferro- which will require considerably more pow-
electric materials for possible next-genera- erful chips in the future.
tion embedded DRAM technology that can
deliver greater memory resources to ad-
dress the growing complexity of compute
applications, from gaming to AI.
Meso logic device
At IEDM 2021, Intel demonstrated the
world’s first experimental realization of a
magnetoelectric spin-orbit (MESO) logic
device at room temperature.
This, says Intel, demonstrates the poten- Brent Anderson, VFET architect and program manager (left) and
tial manufacturability for a new type of Hemanth Jagannathan, principal research staff member display a
wafer outside their Albany lab. (IBM)
transistor based on switching nanoscale
magnets. Extending Moore’s Law
IBM Research, in collaboration with its Al-
Intel and IMEC are making progress with bany Research Alliance partner Samsung,
spintronic materials research to take de- has made a breakthrough in semicon-
vice integration research close to realizing ductor design. This new approach, called
a fully functional spin-torque device. Vertical-Transport Nanosheet Field Ef-
fect Transistor, or VTFET, could help keep
Intel also showcased full 300 mm qubit Moore’s Law alive for years to come.
process flows for the realization of scal-
able quantum computing, compatible with Today’s dominant chip architectures are
CMOS manufacturing and identifies next lateral-transport field effect transistors
steps for future research. intel.com next page
