IEDM '03: production-ready solutions and way-out ideas

摘要

Washington, DC, buzzed with clever process tricks, novel device structures, and some potential disruptive technologies for the future at the IEEE's International Electron Device Meeting, held Dec. 8-10. Highlights included: 1. intensive work on solving problems and improving performance of thin hafnium-based high-k dielectrics, 2. new approaches to creating strained silicon to speed CMOS circuits, 3. progress on workable low- k dielectric schemes for sub-100nm nodes, 4. new types of dense memory devices, including promising work on nonvolatile phase-change memories, 5. a self-limited laser thermal process (LTP) for ultrashallow junction formation for 50nm-gate CMOS devices, and 6. futuristic work on nanotechnology and techniques for creating novel devices on nanowires using chemicals.