Semiconductor science and engineering has become a truly global affair. It was not this way some 40 years ago and earlier when dominance of the United States in semiconductor R&D as well as in semicoinductor industrial activities was firmly established. Today, over 80% of the worldwide wafer processing capabilities are installed in Asia with Taiwan and Japan leading the field. China is rapidly catching up and in terms of single companies Samsung Electronics is projected to take over Intel as a largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world.

Well, there is no doubt that for those involved with semiconductors for a long time it is quite a different landscape. All we need to do is to be fully aware of the global nature of semiconductor science and engineering and take advantage of challenges and opportunities it brings.

Almost exactly two years ago (on Feb. 2, 2008 to be exact) I posted a blog praising photolithography community for extending applicability of 193 nm exposure tools well beyond expectations ( for your convenience I copy this blog below).

The pool of elements semiconductor industry draws from to engineer functional devices is increasing as applications of semiconductor devices and their complexity grow.  There were times, late 60's and early 70's to be exact, when the load was carried out almost entirely by just five elements: Si (substrate), O (component of SiO2) and Al (contacts) with B and P acting as p-type and n-type dopants, respectively (As and Sb n-type dopants were not as common as P at that time). In terms of elements that was all that was needed to be included in the structure of almost all mass produced commercial semiconductor devices in those early years.

How different it is now! Complex Si based integrated circuits and a broad range of compound semiconductors being used to fabricate commercial devices expanded elements base of semiconductor industry immensely. A quick review of the Periodic Table of Elements indicates that as many  as one third of all the elements occurring in nature are needed to engineer electronic and protonic devices these days. Let's hope that nature provided us with supply of elements sufficient  to support growth of semiconductor technology for many years to come.
 

Although I am not directly involved in the development of energy harvesting devices and systems, still I am very upbeat about anything that is being done in this area. In the light of continuously increasing cost of energy, and that fact that it comes mostly from non-renewable sources, any attempt to scavenge energy which would otherwise be wasted should be applauded.

I wish all of you the very best of everything in 2012!

While they may look somewhat strange when put side-by-side, there was no mocking intended when listing all those acronyms commonly used in current transistor lingo (see previous blog).  They all refer to important concepts in transistor scaling which  is a driving force behind the progress of integrated circuit electronics.
 
Let’s consider "DIBL" for instance. It stands for Drain Induced Barrier Lowering and for practical purposes means draoin voltage induced lowering of the potential barrier for electrons flowing from source to drain causing an increase of the leakage current in the off state. Bad effect, no question about it.  Known and understood for quite some time, DIBL is seriously hurting  transistors with ultra-short channel (gate length).

Or take "NBTI"  as an other example. Standing for Negative Bias Temperature Instability, NBTI is a serious reliability problem in state-of he the art transistor engineering, p-channel in particular.

This is to let you know that there is a serious physical meaning behind each acronym quoted in the previous blog.

Experience shows that some acronyms used in semiconductor terminology remain current for a very long time, while some others are forgotten, or become irrelevant as technology moves forward. The same will certainly apply to those lkted in the previous blog.
 

I find it interesting to observe how various specializations within semiconductor science and engineering develop their own terminologies and use them to communicate in the way which is often difficult to follow by the “outsiders”. This trend is particularly evident during the large, multi-session conferences.

Fresh from IEDM, my first thought is that it continues to be a great forum to interact with people speaking the same language (language of semiconductors, that is), to refresh all contacts, and to establish new ones. And that's why people who want to stay "in touch" are drawn to the meetings such as IEDM. With at least six sessions being ran in parallel even the most diligent attendee won't be able to listen to more than some 15% of all the talks given.  So, in terms of technical contents the best source of information is a Technical Digest containing all the papers presented (which, by the way, can be acquired at the fraction of the cost of attendence at the meeting). Still, it is not the same as the most valuable experience come from just being there.

As far as technical content is concerned my first impression is that the IEDM 2011 was mostly confirming trends in semiconductor device science and engineering that are already established rather than bringing to the surface entirely new technical solutions. I will be more specific in this regard in the follow up blogs. So, stay tuned...

Speaking of IEDM (see the previous blog), its history goes back to 1955 when the very first Electron Device Meeting was held (term "international" was add to the title later). Due to the long history and a tradition of being a forum for everything what's truly the latest in the area of electron devices, IEDM is an accurate reflection of the progress in semiconductor device science and engineering over the last 50+ years.

Going over IEDM's Technical Digests from earlier years is both interesting and revealing experience as I learned browsing through 1985 and 1987 editions of the Digest which I recently found in my office. Obviously much have changed in 25 years (for instance, gate length is shorter by almost 20x). On the other hand, however, the nature of the problems semiconductor community is dealing with, as well as driving forces and motivation behind everything that we, as semiconductor R&D folks, are doing did not change much. Also, by going over those old issues one gains perspective on how long does it take to develop a concept presented during the conference into a manufacturing product.


P.S. My first IEDM paper goes back to 1977 edition at which time I was very much a professional rookie. I remember a hassle of typing a camera-ready version of my paper on a typewriter. And not even an electric one.... If you will get a chance, go to paper #8.6 in 1977 volume to see the outcome.

The every-other-year East Coast edition of an International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM) is back in Washington, D.C. this year. After 2009 meeting being held in Baltimore, IEDM comes back to its regular location for December 4-7 gathering.

And usual in early December, attention of international semiconductor device community will be focused on IEDM. I will be there and will be glad to let you know if anything particularly interesting will catch my eye. In the meantime take a moment to take a look at the Technical Program of IEDM 2011.