Materials opportunities and challenges for low-energy computing: Devices

Computing power demand is expected to grow exponentially as millions in developing countries go online, along with a burgeoning number of Internet-connected devices: phones, cars, robotic vacuum cleaners, and smart TVs. During the past five decades, the semiconductor industry has gained performance and efficiency by shrinking silicon-based CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) devices, as governed by Moore’s Law, which predicts the number of transistors on a chip doubling every two years while the costs halve. [...]said Vijay Narayanan, IBM Fellow and senior manager, PCM & AI Materials, at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, “the amount of data being used has gone up exponentially, and at the same time, Moore’s Law scaling has slowed down.” The horizontally stacked nanosheet transistor design consists of nanometers-thick silicon sheets laid on their side fully wrapped by the gate dielectric, reducing leaks and offering better control.