{"id":19438,"date":"2020-12-12T21:26:10","date_gmt":"2020-12-12T15:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=19438"},"modified":"2020-12-12T21:26:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-12T15:41:12","slug":"discovery-suggests-new-promise-for-nonsilicon-computer-transistors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/discovery-suggests-new-promise-for-nonsilicon-computer-transistors\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovery suggests new promise for nonsilicon computer transistors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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For decades, one material has so dominated the production of computer chips and transistors that the tech capital of the world \u2014 Silicon Valley \u2014 bears its name. But silicon\u2019s reign may not last forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MIT researchers have found that an alloy called InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide) could hold the potential for smaller and more energy efficient transistors. Previously, researchers thought that the performance of InGaAs transistors deteriorated at small scales. But the new study shows this apparent deterioration is not an intrinsic property of the material itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The finding could one day help push computing power and efficiency beyond what\u2019s possible with silicon. \u201cWe\u2019re really excited,\u201d said Xiaowei Cai, the study\u2019s lead author. \u201cWe hope this result will encourage the community to continue exploring the use of InGaAs as a channel material for transistors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cai, now with Analog Devices, completed the research as a PhD student in the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories and Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), with Donner Professor Jes\u00fas del Alamo. Her co-authors include Jes\u00fas Grajal of Polytechnic University of Madrid, as well as MIT\u2019s Alon Vardi and del Alamo. The paper<\/a> will be presented this month at the virtual IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transistors are the building blocks of a computer. Their role as switches, either halting electric current or letting it flow, gives rise to a staggering array of computations \u2014 from simulating the global climate to playing cat videos on Youtube. A single laptop could contain billions of transistors. For computing power to improve in the future, as it has for decades, electrical engineers will have to develop smaller, more tightly packed transistors. To date, silicon has been the semiconducting material of choice for transistors. But InGaAs has shown hints of becoming a potential competitor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electrons can zip through InGaAs with ease, even at low voltage. The material is \u201cknown to have great [electron] transport properties,\u201d says Cai. InGaAs transistors can process signals quickly, potentially resulting in speedier calculations. Plus, InGaAs transistors can operate at relatively low voltage, meaning they could enhance a computer\u2019s energy efficiency. So InGaAs might seem like a promising material for computer transistors. But there\u2019s a catch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

InGaAs\u2019 favorable electron transport properties seem to deteriorate at small scales \u2014 the scales needed to build faster and denser computer processors. The problem has led some researchers to conclude that nanoscale InGaAs transistors simply aren\u2019t suited for the task. But, says Cai, \u201cwe have found that that\u2019s a misconception.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team discovered that InGaAs\u2019 small-scale performance issues are due in part to oxide trapping. This phenomenon causes electrons to get stuck while trying to flow through a transistor. \u201cA transistor is supposed to work as a switch. You want to be able to turn a voltage on and have a lot of current,\u201d says Cai. \u201cBut if you have electrons trapped, what happens is you turn a voltage on, but you only have a very limited amount of current in the channel. So the switching capability is a lot lower when you have that oxide trapping.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cai\u2019s team pinpointed oxide trapping as the culprit by studying the transistor\u2019s frequency dependence \u2014 the rate at which electric pulses are sent through the transistor. At low frequencies, the performance of nanoscale InGaAs transistors appeared degraded. But at frequencies of 1 gigahertz or greater, they worked just fine \u2014 oxide trapping was no longer a hindrance. \u201cWhen we operate these devices at really high frequency, we noticed that the performance is really good,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019re competitive with silicon technology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cai hopes her team\u2019s discovery will give researchers new reason to pursue InGaAs-based computer transistors. The work shows that \u201cthe problem to solve is not really the InGaAs transistor itself. It\u2019s this oxide trapping issue,\u201d she says. \u201cWe believe this is a problem that can be solved or engineered out of.\u201d She adds that InGaAs has shown promise in both classical and quantum computing applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis [research] area remains very, very exciting,\u201d says del Alamo. \u201cWe thrive on pushing transistors to the extreme of performance.\u201d One day, that extreme performance could come courtesy of InGaAs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This research was supported in part by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the National Science Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For decades, one material has so dominated the production of computer chips and transistors that the tech capital of the world \u2014 Silicon Valley \u2014 bears its name. But silicon\u2019s reign may not last forever. MIT researchers have found that an alloy called InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide) could hold the potential for smaller and more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-physics","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips.jpg",900,600,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips-200x200.jpg",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips-600x400.jpg",600,400,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips-768x512.jpg",750,500,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips-675x450.jpg",675,450,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips.jpg",900,600,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips.jpg",900,600,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips.jpg",900,600,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips.jpg",855,570,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips.jpg",600,400,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips.jpg",600,400,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips-760x490.jpg",760,490,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips-550x360.jpg",550,360,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips-95x65.jpg",95,65,true],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips.jpg",640,427,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips.jpg",96,64,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/InGaAsChips.jpg",150,100,false]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"Physics<\/a> Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}