Posted: April 30, 2008

AIST established a new nanoelectronics research center

(Nanowerk News) National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) established the Nanodevice Innovation Research Center (Director: Toshihiko Kanayama; Deputy Director: Hiroyuki Akinaga) on April 1, 2008. The Center pursues the limits of miniaturization and high performance of the complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices with the design rule of 32 nm/22 nm, and also develops a new concept technologies to overcome the miniaturization limit.
AIST has promoted the MIRAI semiconductor project, in which the research and development of semiconductor miniaturization technology to enhance CMOS characteristics, such as strained silicon technology and high-k gate insulating film technology, has been carried out. However, the technical limits in terms of the miniaturization of the transistor dimensions have become obvious, and the research and development for technological fields other than semiconductors, such as oxide materials and spintronics, have become important.
On the basis of this background, the Center comprehensively carries out 1) prototype fabrication and the electrical characterization of advanced devices, 2) physical measurements, characterization, and analysis at the nano-level, 3) first-principles electronic state calculations, and 4) device simulation. In addition, the Center has established the Nano-electronics Innovation Platform (NeIP), which will serve as an innovation hub to search for a new innovative technology to replace CMOS and to demonstrate its feasibility. In cooperation with research institutes in Japan and overseas, NeIP will carry out research and development on new principle technologies related to nano-electronics.
NeIP is a collaborative research and development platform in the AIST superclean room building that supports collaborative research and test fabrications, which use various materials and processes, in response to requests from users in and outside of AIST. In cooperation with the Nano Processing Facility (NPF), which has been managed by the AIST Nanotechnology Research Institute for many years, NeIP aims at the integrated management of research activities.
Source: National Institute for Materials Science