5 nanometer

Semiconductor manufacturing processes
10 µm – 1971 6 µm – 1974 3 µm – 1977 1.5 µm – 1982 1 µm – 1985 800 nm – 1989 600 nm – 1994 350 nm – 1995 250 nm – 1997 180 nm – 1999 130 nm – 2001 90 nm – 2004 65 nm – 2006 45 nm – 2008 32 nm – 2010 22 nm – 2012 14 nm – 2014 10 nm – 2017 7 nm  – ~2018 5 nm – ~2020
Half-nodes

In semiconductor manufacturing, the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors defines the 5 nanometer (5 nm) node as the technology node following the 7 nm node.

Transistors at the 7 nm scale were first produced by researchers in the first decade of the 21st century – the process scale may represent the end of Moore's Law scaling for electronic devices.

As of 2016, no 5 nm scale devices have been commercially produced.

History

Background

The 5 nm node was once assumed by some experts to be the end of Moore's law.^[1] Transistors smaller than 7 nm will experience quantum tunnelling through their logic gates.^[2] Due to the costs involved in development, 5 nm is predicted to take longer to reach market than the 2 years estimated by Moore's law.^[1]

Beyond 7 nm, major technological advances would have to be made; possible candidates include vortex laser,^[3] MOSFET-BJT dual-mode transistor,^[4] 3D packaging,^[5] microfluidic cooling,^[6] PCMOS,^[7] vacuum transistors,^[8] t-rays,^[9] extreme ultraviolet lithography,^[10] carbon nanotube transistors,^[11] silicon photonics,^[12] graphene,^[13] phosphorene,^[14] organic semiconductors,^[15] gallium arsenide,^[16] indium gallium arsenide,^[17] nano-patterning,^[18] and reconfigurable chaos-based microchips.^[19]

Technology demos

In 2006, a team of Korean researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the National Nano Fab Center codeveloped a 3 nm transistor, the world's smallest nanoelectronic device based on conventional technology, called a fin field-effect transistor (FinFET).^[20][21] It was the smallest transistor ever produced.

In 2008, transistors one atom thick and ten atoms wide were made by UK researchers. They were carved from graphene, a potential alternative to silicon as the basis of future computing. Graphene is a material made from flat sheets of carbon in a honeycomb arrangement, and is a leading contender. A team at the University of Manchester, UK, used it to make some of the smallest transistors at this time: devices only 1 nm across that contain just a few carbon rings.^[22]

In 2010, an Australian team announced that they fabricated a single functional transistor out of 7 atoms that measured 4 nm in length.^[23][24][25]

In 2012, a team of scientists at Chungbuk National University in South Korea have created a transistor that's only 2 nm in size.^[26]

In 2012, a single-atom transistor was fabricated using a phosphorus atom bound to a silicon surface (between two significantly larger electrodes).^[27] This transistor could be said to be a 180 picometer transistor, the Van der Waals radius of a phosphorus atom; though its covalent radius bound to silicon is likely smaller.^[28] Making transistors smaller than this will require either using elements with smaller atomic radii, or using subatomic particles—like electrons or protons—as functional transistors.

In 2015 IMEC and Cadence had fabricated 5 nm test chips. The fabricated test chips are not fully functional devices but rather are to evaluate patterning of interconnect layers.^[29][30]

In 2015 Intel described a lateral nanowire (or gate-all-around) FET concept for the 5-nm node.^[31]

In 2016 researchers at Berkeley Lab created a transistor with a working 1-nanometer gate.^[32][33]

Commercialization

Although Intel has not yet divulged any certain plans to manufacturers or retailers, their 2009 roadmap projected an end-user release by approximately 2020.^[34][35]

References