Reading: Nanotechnology--Getting Us Over the Brick Wall
Technology has progressed to the point that materials can be manipulated at the level of their individual atoms. In the coming decades, this nanoscale technology will have pervasive and profound effects on the electronics industry.
As electronic devices become much smaller and denser, new architectures and mechanisms for information transport must emerge to meet the challenges of increasing complexity and power dissipation. Just as the electronics industry will change significantly with the introduction and evolution of nanotechnology, so too will the work of electronic engineers.
Science is about the discovery and observation of things as they exist in nature. Technology is in the realm of the engineer, involved in the process of taking these scientifically discovered things and manipulating, shaping, and applying them.[1] We have been doing nanoscience for decades, through work at the molecular level at the scale of nanometers. But when an engineer starts manipulating materials at the atomic level, it's nanotechnology.
A distinction needs to be drawn between nanotechnology and simply "doing small things." Chips have shrunk to 90 nanometer processes just by following the normal progression of Moore's Law into ever smaller geometries. But the term nanotechnology applies only if an engineer is actually manipulating the materials on an atomic level.
"Quantum computing" is an interesting example of just how revolutionary nanocomputing can be. Here, researchers are looking at molecular-scale devices and even creating new kinds of devices that go beyond the transistor.
In quantum computing, rather than transferring data based on the movement of electronic charge, the data may be transferred based on the spin states of atoms — their quantum state.[2] If we can measure and translate that state from one atom to the next, it could serve as a way of propagating information.
This is something quite different from the transfer of charge, or the movement of electrons. It's quite possible that eventually the Van Neumann architecture may be implemented using some means other than transistor-based logic.
Only a few years off, semiconductor development problems are foreseen for which no solutions have yet been identified. It's clear from the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) that a brick wall is looming before us. We are certain to run into basic physical limits if we continue doing things the way we have been, by just scaling them down (or scaling them up, as the case may be).[3]
Physics dictates that we can't just continue to do the same things beyond a certain point. We either have to discover new physics to get us past this point, or we have to come up with a completely different way to address the issues.
The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) indicates that current semiconductor technology will hit a brick wall by 2008 (Source: Intel Corp.).
EDA toolmakers now have solutions that work at the 90 nanometer node, but as devices become ever smaller and more transistors can be etched into a given area, the complexity of designs becomes prohibitive. If we continue on the current track, in five years the amount of heat dissipated on a chip will be equivalent to the surface temperature of the sun. Clearly, complexity and power dissipation are big parts of the brick wall.
Nanotechnology offers an approach that could get us over the brick wall. Here we're talking about doing things in a very different way. Today, integrated circuits are created by basically carving away at a piece of silicon to remove layers and etch out the desired structures. Nanoelectronics, however, could bring us the ability to organically grow these devices molecule by molecule, through a "self-assembly" process that is additive rather than subtractive.
Nanoelectronics represents a true paradigm shift, because we will truly be looking at a whole different way of design and fabrication. Contributions to the solutions will probably come out of a combination of academia, research institutions, as well as design tool developers.
Students are expressing interest in nanotechnology, and academics are discussing how to initiate nanotechnology education. Some institutions have started offering courses, often at the graduate level. A report will soon be available from Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA) on schools where these courses can be found.
For EEs who want to be at the cutting edge, now is the time to start looking at nanotechnology in other domains, such as biomedical engineering. Take note of the new ways in which those applications are being fabricated, as well as the types of metrology being used to measure their properties and control their manufacturing processes. This kind of cross-disciplinary migration of knowledge will be key to the development of the new field of nanoelectronics.
The NanoEngineering TecForum was jointly sponsored by the International Engineering Consortium (www.iec.org) and the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (www.ecedha.org). For further information on the applications of nanotechnology, refer to the Foresight Institute at www.foresight.org.
WORDS AND PHRASES
nanotechnology纳米技术
pervasive普遍的，到处渗透的
realm 领域，范围，王国
geometry 几何图形，几何体，几何尺寸
propagate 传播，繁殖
transistor-based 基于电晶体的
looming 隐隐约约的，正在逼近的
node 节点，结节点
self-assembly 自组装
subtractive减去的，负的，有负号的
fabrication 制造，建造，伪造物
cross-disciplinary 跨学科的，交叉学科的
the International Engineering Consortium 国际工程协会
Foresight Institute 分子纳米技术系列
quantum computing 量子计算
spin state 自旋态
quantum state量子态
International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS)
国际半导体发展路线图
be etched into被刻在
paradigm shift 典范转移，思考模式的转移
NOTES
[1] Science is about the discovery and observation of things as they exist in nature. Technology is in the realm of the engineer, involved in the process of taking these scientifically discovered things and manipulating, shaping, and applying them.
科学关于自然界中所存在事物的发现与观察；而技术是在工程领域的，是关于取得这些科学发现的事物并且操作、修整和应用它们的过程。
[2] In quantum computing, rather than transferring data based on the movement of electronic charge, the data may be transferred based on the spin states of atoms — their quantum state.
在量子计算里，数据的传输可以基于原子的自旋状态—他们的量子状态，而不是基于电子电荷的运动量。
[3] We are certain to run into basic physical limits if we continue doing things the way we have been, by just scaling them down (or scaling them up, as the case may be).
如果我们继续用以前的方法处理问题，仅仅是按照具体情况扩大问题范围或者缩小问题范围，我们必然走进基本物理的限制中
