IBM’s carbon nanotube FET hints at post-silicon circuits

October 9, 2001 | Source: EE Times

IBM Corp.’s manufacture of a top-gate carbon nanotube field effect transistor (CNTFET) is a key breakthrough in post-silicon circuit design, according to a leading IBM researcher speaking at this weeks’ Nanotube Symposium. Now the company will work to shrink the gap for top-gate CNTFETs to 2 nanometers, which will increase the transistor’s performance exponentially and possibly fulfill the promise of carbon nanotubes as a nanoscale replacement for silicon circuits.

CNTs could produce a clutch of “billionaires” among those making key breakthroughs over the next decade, Leo Esaki of the Science Academy of Tsukuba said. Japan is developing a nanotechnology industry, with CNTs a key weapon, and the Japanese government last year founded the Center for Advanced Carbon Materials to speed this work, which is centered in Tsukuba.

“The Japanese government has spent $22 billion building Tsukuba,” Esaki added.