Digital Event Horizon
MIT researchers have successfully developed a method for seamlessly stacking electronic layers to create faster, denser, and more powerful computer chips. This breakthrough could exponentially increase the number of transistors on chips, enabling more efficient AI hardware.
The researchers at MIT's School of Engineering have developed a method for seamlessly stacking electronic layers to create faster, denser, and more powerful computer chips.The breakthrough was made possible by Jeehwan Kim's team, who used metallurgy-inspired techniques to grow single-crystalline 2D materials at lower temperatures.The new method allows for the growth of single-crystalline transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) on silicon wafers at temperatures as low as 380 degrees Celsius.The team fabricated a multilayered chip with alternating layers of two different TMDs, demonstrating the potential for using this method to create p-type and n-type transistors.The implications of this breakthrough include doubling the density of semiconducting elements, enabling tens to hundreds of logic and memory layers to be stacked on top of each other.
In a groundbreaking achievement, researchers at MIT's School of Engineering have successfully developed a method for seamlessly stacking electronic layers to create faster, denser, and more powerful computer chips. This innovative technique has the potential to exponentially increase the number of transistors on chips, enabling more efficient AI hardware.
The breakthrough was made possible by Jeehwan Kim, a professor at MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Kim and his team have been working tirelessly to develop a new method for growing single-crystalline 2D materials at temperatures lower than 400 degrees Celsius. This is crucial because the underlying circuitry would be completely destroyed if the material were grown at such high temperatures.
According to Kim, the team's approach was inspired by metallurgy - the science and craft of metal production. Metallurgists have discovered that nucleation occurs most readily at the edges of a mold into which liquid metal is poured. By borrowing this concept from metallurgy, Kim and his colleagues were able to develop a method for growing single-crystalline TMDs (transition metal dichalcogenides) on silicon wafers that already had transistor circuitry.
The team first covered the circuitry with a mask of silicon dioxide, similar to their previous work. They then deposited "seeds" of TMD at the edges of each mask's pocket and found that these edge seeds grew into single-crystalline material at temperatures as low as 380 degrees Celsius. In contrast, seeds that started growing in the center, away from the edges of each pocket, required higher temperatures to form single-crystalline material.
To take their breakthrough further, Kim and his team used the new method to fabricate a multilayered chip with alternating layers of two different TMDs - molybdenum disulfide and tungsten diselenide. Both materials have potential for being made into p-type and n-type transistors, respectively. The team was able to grow both materials in single-crystalline form directly on top of each other without requiring any intermediate silicon wafers.
The implications of this breakthrough are significant. According to Kim, the method will effectively double the density of a chip's semiconducting elements and particularly metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS), which is a basic building block of modern logic circuitry. This means that the team can grow tens to hundreds of logic and memory layers right on top of each other, allowing them to communicate very well.
In contrast, conventional 3D chips have been fabricated with silicon wafers in between, by drilling holes through the wafer - a process that limits the number of stacked layers, vertical alignment resolution, and yields. Kim's growth-based method addresses all these issues at once.
To commercialize their stackable chip design further, Kim has recently spun off a company called FS2 (Future Semiconductor 2D materials). The team so far shows a concept at a small-scale device array, but the next step is scaling up to show professional AI chip operation.
In conclusion, this groundbreaking research has opened up enormous potential for the semiconductor industry. By developing a method for seamlessly stacking electronic layers, Kim and his colleagues have enabled the creation of faster, denser, and more powerful computer chips that can potentially revolutionize the field of electronics.
Related Information:
https://news.mit.edu/2024/mit-engineers-grow-high-rise-3d-chips-1218
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-12-high-3d-chips-enabling-efficient.html
Published: Wed Dec 18 10:15:08 2024 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
