Nanomanufacturing Technology and Opportunities Through Physically-Based Simulation

Abstract

The semiconductor industry has clearly moved into the era of nanoelectronics where the “the understanding and control of materials at the sub-100nm level” — the best established definition of nanotechnology [1] — is essential to maintaining Moore’s Law. However nanoelectronics, like many other applications for nanotechnology, requires more than making single devices in small areas. To be commercially relevant, structures must be manufactured in volume and/or over large areas. And perhaps most fundamentally they must be produced at ever lower costs to drive adoption of new applications, grow end markets and provide the source of investment in next generation technology. In many instances, the invention of an appropriate manufacturing method may be of equal importance to the underlying device concept — there is perhaps no better example of than that of the IC itself where both Kilby (first realization) and Noyce (manufacturable process) are recognized as its primary inventors. We will define these methods of realization as “nanomanufacturing technologies” — i.e. the materials, process and measurement tools and technologies that deliver the required scale, cost, reproducibility and reliability to manufacture successful nanotechnology-based products.