Phys.com November 12, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (MIT, Brookhaven National Laboratory) has developed a device that consists of several thin layers, including a layer of cobalt where the magnetic changes take place, sandwiched between layers of a metal such as palladium or platinum, an overlay of gadolinium oxide, and a gold layer to connect to the driving electrical voltage. To change magnetic properties, they used hydrogen ions which can zip in and out very easily, making the new system much faster. Magnetism gets switched on with just a brief application of voltage and then stays put. […]
Category Archives: Microelectronics
Through-Silicon Transistors Could Make Stacking Chips Smarter
IEEE Spectrum October 2, 2018 Through-silicon vias (TSVs) are the standard way to stack chips. To make TSV smart chip, researchers in Germany have designed through-silicon via field effect transistor (TSVFET) in which the drain and source were at the top and bottom of the hole. When voltage was applied to the gate, current flowed from top to bottom through the area surrounding the hole. Just by applying a voltage or taking it off, it is possible to activate a chip or deactivate it completely. TSVFETs can be linked up to form elementary circuits. By adding some control electronics, the […]
Heat-conducting crystals could help computer chips keep their cool
Science Daily July 5, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (UT Dallas, University of Illinois, University of Houston) has found high thermal conductivity of 1000 ± 90 W/m/K at room temperature in cubic boron arsenide grown through modified chemical vapor transport technique. The thermal conductivity is a factor of 3 higher than that of silicon carbide and surpassed only by diamond and the basal plane value of graphite. Boron arsenide could be a potential revolutionary thermal management material… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Computing: Design for magnetoelectric device may improve memory
Science Daily May 4, 2018 Existing devices require large magnetic and electric fields to switch the magnetic properties of the devices. Researchers at the University of Minnesota used the magnetic material to surround chromia (Cr2O3) providing a magnetic field through quantum mechanical coupling to Cr magnetic moments, while allowing devices to be arranged in a way that blocks stray magnetic fields from affecting nearby devices. An element to read out the state of the device is placed on top of the device. This could potentially pack more memory into a smaller space… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
3D Nanoprinting facilitates communication with light
Nanowerk April 20, 2018 Researchers in Germany have developed a new solution for the coupling of optical microchips to each other or to optical fibers. They use tiny beam-shaping elements that are printed directly onto the facets of optical components by a high-precision 3D printing process. These elements can be produced with nearly any three-dimensional shape and enable low-loss coupling of various optical components with a high positioning tolerance. They produced beam-shaping elements of various designs and tested them on a variety of chip and fiber facets and reached coupling efficiencies of up to 88% between an indium phosphide laser […]
Integrating optical components into existing chip designs
Nanowerk April 20, 2018 An international team of researchers (Belgium, USA – MIT, UC Berkeley, University of Colorado, Boston University, SUNY Albany, Switzerland) introduced photonics into bulk silicon CMOS chips using a layer of polycrystalline silicon deposited on silicon oxide islands fabricated alongside transistors. They implemented integrated high-speed optical transceivers in this platform that operate at ten gigabits per second, composed of millions of transistors, and arrayed on a single optical bus for wavelength division multiplexing. By decoupling the formation of photonic devices from that of transistors, this integration approach can achieve many of the goals of multi-chip solutions, but […]
Breakthrough in circuit design makes electronics more resistant to damage and defects
Physorg March 9,2018 An international team of researchers (USA – UT Austin, City College of New York, City University of New York, Israel) used nonlinear resonators to mold a band-diagram of the circuit array which was designed so that a change in signal intensity could induce a change in the band diagram’s topology. For low signal intensities, the electronic circuit was designed to support a trivial topology, and therefore provide no protection from defects. In this case, as defects were introduced into the array, the signal transmission and the functionality of the circuit were negatively affected… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Researchers develop heat switch for electronics
Physorg March 8, 2018 Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign engineered a specific heat flow path between the hot region and cold region, and then created a way to break the heat flow path when desired. The technology is based on the motion of a liquid metal droplet which can be positioned to connect a heat flow path or moved away from the heat flow path to limit the heat flow. In demonstrations, when the switch was on, they were able to extract heat at more than 10 W/cm2. When the switch was off, the heat flow […]
Chipmakers Test Ferroelectrics as a Route to Ultralow-Power Chips
IEEE Spectrum February 26, 2018 Researchers at a company in the US chose a ferroelectric material that does not require ions or atoms to relocate which slows things down in ferroelectric materials. In their experimental 14-nm transistors, clouds of electrons around silicon-doped hafnium dioxide experience the polarization. Ring oscillators made with these transistors can switch at the same frequency as those made with the usual recipe, yet they require just 54 mV to achieve a tenfold increase in the current. Their devices require a 3- to 8-nm-thick layer of ferroelectric material, which is still relatively thick… read more. Related TECHNICAL […]
Innovative transistors based on magnetically induced movement of ions
Nanowerk December 27, 2017 The transport of paramagnetic FeCl4 ions in a liquid electrolyte (including [Bmim]FeCl4) demonstrated by researchers in Japan, was magnetically controlled to operate a typical electrochemical device; an Electric Double Layer Transistor (EDLT), a type of transistor that uses an EDL at a semiconductor/electrolyte interface to tune the electronic carrier density of the semiconductor. The device was successfully switched by a magnetic field, although the switching ratio was smaller than in conventional EDLTs that are controlled by an electric field. The research has the potential to realize innovative applications that have not been possible using conventional approaches. […]