A Taiwanese research team has extended and potentially laid the groundwork for going beyond Moore’s Law with a monolayer diode, which could lead to a major breakthrough in the semiconductor industry, the Ministry of Science and Technology told a news conference yesterday.
Supported by the ministry, a research team led by National Cheng Kung University professor Wu Chung-lin (吳忠霖) and National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center assistant scientist Chen Chia-hao (陳家浩) on Aug. 7 published its research results on developing a 2D monolayer diode in Nature Communications.
The electrodes of the diode are made of 2D nonmetallic elements, tungsten diselenide and graphene, which demonstrate great semiconducting ability in an atomic monolayer that is only 0.7 nanometer (nm) wide, the ministry said.
Compared with common silicon semiconductors, for which transistor channel size has hit a hard limit at 3nm wide, the monolayer diode is thinner, smaller and faster, it said.
As a result, it has the potential to move beyond Moore’s Law and meet the manufacturing needs of a new generation of energy-saving ICs, the ministry added.
Moore’s Law is a prediction made by Intel Corp cofounder Gordon Moore in 1965 that the number of transistors on a chip would double every 18 to 24 months. It has since become a guiding principle in the computer chip industry.
However, in the past few years the physical transistor channel size limit has been reached and the consequent challenges faced by the industry have given rise to questions as to whether the speed of innovation suggested by the law might have ended.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) last year said that the law is likely to remain relevant for another decade.
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
RSS