4 ms·
Atomic radius of Silicon atom is 0.11nm, which results in width of about 0.22nm. So even tightly packing atoms will make the barrier only ~13 atoms thick. Van d
by abpavel 9y ago
Atomic radius of Silicon atom is 0.11nm, which results in width of about 0.22nm. So even tightly packing atoms will make the barrier only ~13 atoms thick.
Van der Waals radius is about twice that, resulting in 7-atom-wide barrier. Quantum tunneling [0] is apparent at 3nm, and gets worse from there, so I don't see how they would be preventing electrons leaking through the barrier, unless "3nm Fab" would have a shovel of marketing salt to boot.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling
- typon 9y agoNone of the technology node names have corresponded to actual physical gate length since probably the 45nm node.
- baybal2 9y agoyou can grow a layer of silicon on top of something with slightly more compact lattice
- esmi 9y agoTransistors have always leaked. The main thing is Ion/Ioff > 1. The higher the ratio the better but with digital one can get by with surprisingly little gain and still get useful circuits.