news review IEDM to showcase record-breaking III-Vs
THIS YEAR’S IEEE Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) will include coverage of a 400 GHz GaN HEMT, an InGaAs terahertz transistor, an InGaAs FinFET for low-power logic and the world’s first InGaAs MOSFET on an insulating substrate.
At IEDM 2010, which will be held in San Francisco from 6-8 December, a team from HRL will be claiming the speed record for a GaN HEMT. The GaN-on-SiC transistor produced by this US defence giant has a 40 nm gate and produces a cut-off frequency of 220 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency of 440 GHz.
According to HRL, one of the challenges associated with making a transistor out of GaN is the realization of a good electrical contact with the material, given its high resistance. The team overcame this by re- growing the ohmic contacts using molecular-beam epitaxy. Ultra-high speed transistors will be reported by a team led by Teledyne Scientific. This effort has led to a 1-THz InGaAs Transistor with “good” gain.
This team’s transistor is a 50nm gate-length enhancement-mode PHEMT that was built on InP and has good transconductance (1.7S/mm) at moderate voltage levels. Key to its performance are the short gate length and a small channel (10nm thick), which maximize carrier transport and minimize
contact resistance and capacitance parasitics. The 1.7S/mm transconductance at 1THz (fmax) was achieved at 0.75V input voltage.
The meeting will also detail the efforts of a team led by University of Tokyo that has fabricated the world’s first InGaAs MOSFET built on an insulating substrate, and also the thinnest InGaAs MOSFET ever made, with a tiny 3.5nm channel. Nonconducting substrates are key to the eventual integration of such devices with silicon CMOS architectures because they reduce short-channel effects. This device has dual gates and demonstrated good on/off
characteristics (~107) and transconductance. The team direct wafer- bonded their transistor to silicon. They avoided creating unwanted source-drain junctions, which, because of the extremely thin films that make up the device, would have been difficult to anneal and would have made ion implantation difficult. Instead, they substituted an n-doped accumulation-mode channel.
Meanwhile, a partnership between Intel and IQE will report the development of a InGaAs FinFET for low-power logic. FinFETs are nanoscale transistors with long, thin channels surrounded by multiple gates that provide superior on/off control versus planar devices. InGaAs, meanwhile, is a compound semiconductor that yields faster, more energy-efficient transistors than silicon.
FinFETs made from InGaAs may make possible ultra-dense yet low-power logic circuits. The first surface-channel InGaAs FinFET was described at the 2009 IEDM, but this year a team led by Intel will discuss InGaAs quantum-well FinFETs with enhanced overall electrical performance, including good control of troublesome short- channel effects. The performance was made possible by 35nm-wide and smaller fins; ultra-small 5nm gate-to-drain and gate-to- source separations; a high-k gate dielectric, and a simplified source/drain architecture.
TSMC Begins Building first Thin Film Solar R&D Centre and Fab
TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY, LTD broke ground in Taichung’s Central Taiwan Science Park on the company’s first Thin Film Solar R&D Centre and Fab, laying the foundation for the company’s entry into the thin-film solar photovoltaic (PV) market.
“TSMC’s New Businesses team has reached many important milestones since it was formed last year, first with our LED facility in Hsinchu, and now with construction in Taichung on our first solar facility. Our solar and LED businesses will not only bolster TSMC’s revenue and profit growth in the coming decades, they also play a key role in TSMC’s corporate social responsibility by making products that support a greener earth.“ said TSMC
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www.compoundsemiconductor.net October 2010
Chairman and CEO Dr. Morris Chang. “In addition, construction of this solar R&D centre and fab, along with our Fab 15 Gigafab next to it, means Taichung’s Central Taiwan Science Park will become home to much of TSMC’s most advanced and innovative production.”
“TSMC has always been committed to technology leadership, and our solar business will be no different,” said Dr. Rick Tsai, TSMC President of New Businesses. “The research performed at this R&D centre will help us achieve our goal of offering a leading thin-film solution and the production at this fab, drawing on TSMC’s wealth of manufacturing know-how, will pave the way for us to become a top provider of solar PV modules.”
TSMC plans to invest US$258 million for the first phase of the Thin Film Solar R&D Centre and Fab, which is scheduled for equipment move-in in the second quarter of 2011 and achieve initial volume production of 200MW (megawatts) per year in thin-film photovoltaic modules in 2012.
TSMC also plans to add a second phase to the facility and expand production to more than 700MW, employing about 2,000 total staff in the facility.
In addition, the R&D centre in the facility will continue to develop the CIGS technology licensed from Stion in June of this year. TSMC will offer its solar products around the world under its own brand.
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