The Johns Hopkins University

Whiting School of Engineering

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Beyond the End of the Roadmap: The Physics and Tools of Next Generation Logic

Seminar By

Matthew Gilbert

Assistant Director, South West Academy of Nanoelectronics

(SWAN)

Microelectronics Research Center

University of Texas at Austin

ABSTRACT:

As the march towards ever smaller silicon devices continues unabated, we are rapidly approaching size scales where the bulk silicon transistor can no longer deliver sufficient device performance. The main problem with using charge based devices for next generation logic devices is the fact that their performance has basic and fundamental physical limitations. Therefore, while new device designs may extend the life of CMOS for several years, concerns about the power dissipation in these future generation CMOS devices has fueled the search for new computational state variables and the tools with which to evaluate these new devices.

In this talk, we will discuss the transport properties of ultimate CMOS devices and those beyond the current vision of the semiconductor roadmap. We begin with a brief discussion of some issues surrounding ultra-scaled nanowire transistors under a variety of conditions. We then will discuss the possibility of exploiting the exotic phenomena of strongly interacting systems to produce a completely new generation of logic devices based on collective behavior. In particular, we will discuss the physics and transport properties of pseudospintronic and graphitic devices as possible vehicles for low dissipation logic devices. However, the exotic physics in these new devices cannot be adequately captured using traditional techniques. To remedy this, we introduce a new, highly parallelizable many-body simulation technique for capturing the correlated physics of hundreds of fully interacting electrons in the linear response regime at finite temperature. We demonstrate this technique on a quasi-1D GaAs quantum wire to examine the crossover between fermionic and Luttinger liquid behavior of the electron gas.

Tuesday, October, 16 2007

4:00 p.m.

Barton 117

Refreshments will be served at 3:45 p.m.

FOR DISABILITY INFORMATION

CONTACT: Candace Abel (410) 516-7031 cabel@jhu.edu