Microchip fab plants in the United States can cram billions of data processing transistors onto a tiny silicon chip, but a critical device, in essence, a “clock,” to time the operation of those transistors must be made separately – creating a weak point in chip security and the supply line. A new ap
proach uses commercial chip fab materials and techniques to fabricate specialized transistors that serve as the building block of this timing device, addressing the weak point and enabling new functionality through enhanced integration.
Like all transistors – the devices that undergird modern microelectronics – FinFETs are a voltage-activated on/off gate. As its name suggests, a FinFET passes a current along a fin of semiconducting material that runs through the gate. In the closed, or off, state, the fin does not conduct electricity. A voltage applied to the top of the gate builds an electric charge in the fin, allowing electricity to flow in an open, or on, state.
Weinstein’s innovation is to build an acoustic resonator with the existing repertoire of materials and fabrication techniques available in a standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor chip fab. In a recent paper in the journal, her research team reports its most advanced design to date.
“We’re squeezing those layers between the gate and the semiconductor, pushing and pulling on that thin region between the gate and the fin,” Jackson said. “We do this alternately on adjacent transistors – one compressing, one stretching – building vibrations laterally in the device.”
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