TSMC finds right material for future 1nm node

Hexus noticed TSMC and its partners have made a breakthrough that paves a path towards a future 1nm process. In a new paper published in Nature, the Taiwanese semiconductor foundry describes a solution that can help it to move past limitations of current semiconductor technologies and materials. TSMC worked with National University of Taiwan (NTU) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) over the course of over 18 months to enable this breakthrough.

Scientists have for a long time looked towards the potential of atomically thin two-dimensional semiconductors in realising high-performance electronic devices. However, there have been two significant problems to migrating semiconductor production to use this new tech. Firstly the materials had an inherent property of high contact resistance, and secondly they had poor current delivery capabilities. Now TSMC, NTU, and MIT appear to have solved these issues.

According to the research paper, the scientists have cracked the above-mentioned problems and achieved "zero Schottky barrier height, a contact resistance of 123 ohm micrometres and an on-state current density of 1,135 microamps per micrometre on monolayer MoS2". These are said to be the best values ever for these materials, and hold promise for extending Moore's Law.

It's unknown when TSMC plans to move to 1nm production. The firm's current roadmap calls for 3nm mass production in the second half of 2022. Before moving to 1nm, the firm will roll out a 2nm node.