Scientists use germanium to produce the most flexible adaptive transistors
Or create a new era of chip technology
Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, December 23 (intern reporter Zhang Jiaxin) The special properties of germanium and the use of dedicated programming gate electrodes make it possible to create a prototype for a new component that opens a new era of chip technology.
According to a study recently published in the American Chemical Society's "Journal of Nano", Vienna University of Technology in Austria does not rely on silicon-based transistor technology, but uses germanium to produce the most flexible transistor in the world.
This new type of adaptive transistor can be dynamically switched during operation and can perform different logic tasks.
This fundamentally changes the possibilities of chip design and opens up new opportunities in the fields of artificial intelligence, neural networks and even logic.
The way the charge is transported in the transistor depends on the material used: either it is freely moving electrons with negative charges, or there may be a lack of electrons in a single atom, so the point is positively charged.
This is the so-called "hole".
In the new type of transistor, electrons and holes operate simultaneously in a very special way.
Marcial Sistani, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Solid State Electronics at the Vienna University of Technology, explained: "Through an extremely clean and high-quality interface, we use a very thin wire made of germanium to connect the two electrodes. On top of the germanium , We placed a gate electrode. The decisive step is that our transistor has another control electrode, which is placed on the interface between germanium and metal. It can dynamically program the function of the transistor."
This device structure makes it possible to control electrons and holes separately.
Sistani added, "Gemanium is used because germanium has a very special electronic structure: when a voltage is applied, the current will initially increase, but after a certain threshold, the current will decrease again. This is called negative differential. Resistance. With the help of the control electrode, we can adjust the voltage at which this threshold is located. This provides a new degree of freedom, and we can use this degree of freedom to make the transistor achieve the desired characteristics. For example, you can compare the NAND in the logic circuit The gate switches to the NOR gate."
So far, the intelligence of electronic devices has only been realized by the interconnection of several transistors, and each transistor has only fairly primitive functions.
In the future, this kind of intelligence can allow the adaptability of the new transistor itself to be realized.
Due to improved adaptability, arithmetic operations that previously required 160 transistors can now be completed with 24 transistors.
In this way, the speed and energy efficiency of the circuit can also be significantly improved.
Editor-in-chief
The transistor is a variable current switch that controls the output current based on the input voltage.
Unlike a mechanical switch, it uses electrical signals to control its opening and closing.
Silicon has always been the absolute main force for making transistors. In recent years, gallium arsenide, gallium nitride, graphene...the efforts of mankind to find new materials have also continued.
The research mentioned in this article is not to find a new transistor material, but to introduce germanium, an element with a special electronic structure, to make the transistor more flexible and intelligent, and improve the adaptability of the transistor.
Researchers hope that the new transistor can become a powerful "assist" for traditional transistors and play a role in energy saving and increasing computing power.