Scientists at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed the technology needed to manufacture subnanometer-scale semiconductors. Photo provided by: KAIST
SEOUL, Feb. 2 (UPI) — A team of scientists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology announced Friday that they have developed the technology needed for subnanometer-scale semiconductors.
The team, led by KAIST professor Lee Ka-young, said the new technology uses a new material called ambipolar molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) instead of traditional silicon.
Two Asian chipmakers, Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, are using the latest technology, the 3-nanometer process.
The companies and their U.S. rival, Intel, will start mass producing chips based on the 2-nanometer process and also work on the subnanometer scale.
One nanometer is one billionth of a meter. A human hair is 50,000 to 100,000 nanometers thick.
Chip manufacturers are trying to make their products more compact because smaller transistors on a chip provide better performance and lower power consumption.
“The world is currently racing to develop computer chip nodes targeting sub-nanometers. Conventional silicon is not a good material for such development due to problems such as short channel effects,” Lee said. told UPI News Korea.
“MoS2’s unique structure makes it unique in that it can efficiently address these problems. However, scientists have struggled to use it to create ambipolar semiconductors. Against this background, we have demonstrated a simple strategy for realizing high-performance bipolar MoS2 devices,” she said.
Short-channel effects occur in very large integrated circuits made of ultra-small devices and negatively impact performance due to problems such as current leakage.
An ambipolar semiconductor means that it is designed to transport both positive and negative charges, a fundamental function required for chips.
Lee added that her team’s new discovery has another advantage called multifunctionality, since MoS2-based devices can act as transistors, diodes, and photodetectors.
The study was recently published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal American Chemical Society Nano.