NSF Award
0432636
By 2016 or earlier the Semiconductor Industry will be nearing the end of CMOS scaling and that continued progress in functionality-cost ratios will require the invention of new information processing technologies. A range of new concepts for devices, fabrication techniques, and system architectures are emerging today under the general heading of nanoelectronics. That may eventually provide the basis for continuing the Moore's Law advances in information technologies that we have experienced for the last three decades.<br/>A wide range of new ideas have been proposed for post-CMOS technologies, such as molecular electronics, carbon nanotube devices etc. Characteristic of any new area, it is difficult to discern which of these concepts has the potential to provide a technological basis for information technologies of the future.<br/><br/>In 2003, the Semiconductor Industry, via the International Technology Roadmap for<br/>Semiconductors (ITRS) process, began to assess the applicability of a wide range of research devices to serve as a basis for continuing historical functionality-cost trends.<br/>Industry specialists conducted these assessments without substantial inputs from the university research community and they indicated that none of the research devices studied for logic applications is a likely candidate to continue the Moore's law cadence for information technology beyond the end of CMOS scaling. This rather bleak assessment, if correct, drives the need for new thinking in device and architecture research. On the other hand, the 2003 ITRS assessment may be the result of the ITRS Emerging Research<br/>Device Technology working Group's (ERD TWG) inadequate comprehension of the performance potential of the proposed new device technologies.<br/><br/>This proposal seeks travel funds for university researchers to attend three mini-workshops with the ITRS Roadmap's ERD Working Group members so that the 2004/2005 version of the ITRS will reflect a consensus view on candidate technologies proposed for Post-CMOS devices.
