Invited Paper NS+EM-WeM9
Nanowires in Nanoelectronics: Problems and Promise

Wednesday, October 17, 2007, 10:40 am, Room 616

Progress in microelectronics has generally followed the well known scaling rules known as Moore's Law. By the end of this decade, we will approach some well recognized limits in traditional semiconductor devices. Nanowires have been put forward as a new technology with new promise to extend nanoelectronics. For this to be the case, the nanowires must fit into the scaling rules and must offer important new options, primarily in circuit cleverness. In this talk, I will review the scaling rules, and where they have led us, then discuss how the constraints of these rules, particularly Si area cost, dictate how new technologies can be used. These suggest that the impact of nanowires will likely be in providing new options for architectural revolutions, as opposed to merely clever new devices.