Intel Shows Life Beyond CMOS 2017-03-29
Intel's ultimate goal is to achieve significantly lower energy per operation for computation while utilizing the same fabs.
"We are looking beyond CMOS logic and computation methods to discover how to do it differently," said Ian Young, a senior fellow with Intel's Technology Manufacturing Group and director of exploratory integrated circuits in components research. "We want to lower the power supply voltage well below 0.5V, but the 60mV per decade sub-threshold swing of the MOSFET limits us from doing this for CMOS logic."
The hitch is that no matter which new technology is adopted, it must be integrated with the existing CMOS process because some CMOS transistors will be needed for the clocking and I/O analog circuits. Never fear, however. [**]ccording to Young, there are around a dozen different ideas being researched to use the same fabs while achieving significantly lower supply voltages.
“Intel has been benchmarking delay and energy per logic operation for all the beyond CMOS devices, in order to speed up the progress. We are also doing a deep dive into spintronic logic devices," said Young. "How they operate, modeling their behavior and understanding how they could achieve lower turn-on voltages than CMOS and even tunneling FETs."
Intel is exploring different types of spintronic technology to beat CMOS in power-performance such as all-spin, magneto-electric and spin orbit coupling logic devices. While it is not picking the best approach yet, many innovative and practical technologies are being discovered.
Young also recently became the editor-in-chief of a new technical journal called the IEEE Journal of Exploratory Solid-Site Computational Devices and Circuits, which explores these new CMOS-fab compatible processes.