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Carbon nanotube-based CMOS transistors and integrated circuits

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Abstract

Over the last sixty years, the scaling of silicon-based complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) field-effect transistors (FETs) have promoted the rapid development of microelectronic technology. However, the development of Si CMOS technology is currently subject to serious challenges from various aspects such as physics limit, cost, and power consumption, and is becoming increasingly difficult. Material innovation is exerting an ever-greater role in the integrated circuit design. By looking for thinner semiconductor materials with higher mobility as the active layer to construct smaller and higher-performance transistors, it is possible to further stimulate transistors and integrated circuits on performance, density, power dissipation, and functions. In 1991, Iijima discovered carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Due to its excellent electrical properties and intrinsic nano-scale size, CNT has been considered by academia and industry to have great potential to replace silicon materials in the future for the extremely scaled technology nodes or novel electronic applications. This paper reviews the latest advancements in CNT-based electronics research. Finally, the challenges and pathways for nanotube transistors to transition into commercial applications are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Key Research & Development Program (Grant No. 2016YFA0201901) and Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission (Grant No. Z181100004418011).

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  1. Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices and Department of Electronics and Center for Carbon-based Electronics, Department of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Yunong Xie & Zhiyong Zhang

  2. Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Yunong Xie

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Correspondence to Zhiyong Zhang.

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Xie, Y., Zhang, Z. Carbon nanotube-based CMOS transistors and integrated circuits. Sci. China Inf. Sci. 64, 201402 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-021-3271-8

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