Tunnel field-effect transistors as energy-efficient electronic switches

Power dissipation is a fundamental problem for nanoelectronic circuits. Scaling the supply voltage reduces the energy needed for switching, but the field-effect transistors (FETs) in today's integrated circuits require at least 60 mV of gate voltage to increase the current by one order of magni...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inNature (London) Vol. 479; no. 7373; pp. 329 - 337
Main Authors Ionescu, Adrian M., Riel, Heike
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Nature Publishing Group UK 17.11.2011
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects
639/301/1005/1007
639/705/258
CMOS
Electric potential
Energy efficiency
Humanities and Social Sciences
Integrated circuits
Materials
multidisciplinary
Nanostructure
Nanowires
Properties
Random access memory
review-article
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Semiconductor devices
Semiconductors
Transistors
Tunnels (transportation)
Voltage
Switzerland
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Power dissipation is a fundamental problem for nanoelectronic circuits. Scaling the supply voltage reduces the energy needed for switching, but the field-effect transistors (FETs) in today's integrated circuits require at least 60 mV of gate voltage to increase the current by one order of magnitude at room temperature. Tunnel FETs avoid this limit by using quantum-mechanical band-to-band tunnelling, rather than thermal injection, to inject charge carriers into the device channel. Tunnel FETs based on ultrathin semiconducting films or nanowires could achieve a 100-fold power reduction over complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) transistors, so integrating tunnel FETs with CMOS technology could improve low-power integrated circuits.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/nature10679