IEDM 2021: Intel shares the latest research breakthroughs with Moore's Law to Run to 2

In the relentless pursuit of Moore's Law, Intel continues to focus on key packaging, transistors, quantum physics and other fields to promote and accelerate the development of computing in the next decade. At the 2021 IEEE International Conference on Electronic Devices (IEDM), the chip giant outlined the latest achievements. These include a 10x increase in hybrid bonded package interconnect density, a 30 to 50 percent increase in transistor size, major breakthroughs in new power and memory technologies, and new physics concepts that could one day revolutionize traditional computing methods.

Robert Chau, Senior Researcher and General Manager of Component Research at Intel, said: "At Intel, the research and innovation required to advance Moore's Law never stops."

The Component Research Group will share key research breakthroughs and revolutionary process and packaging technologies during IEDM 2021 to meet the industry and community's insatiable need for powerful computing.

These results are the result of the tireless efforts of Intel's best scientists and engineers, who continue to be at the forefront of innovation to keep Moore's Law going.

It is reported that Moore's Law has long guided computing innovation in the IT industry to meet the needs of every technology iteration from mainframe to mobile computing equipment.

But as we enter a new era of unlimited data and AI computing, this evolution continues to this day.

As the cornerstone of Moore's Law, intel's component research group is committed to continuous innovation in three key areas:

(1) Basic scaling technology for accommodating more transistors;

(2) New silicon function for power and storage gain;

(3) Explore new concepts in the field of physics to completely subvert the world's existing ways of computing.

Many previous technological breakthroughs have been applied in many of today's products, including strain silicon, Hi-K metal gates, FinFET transistors, RibbonFETs, and packaging process innovations such as EMIB and Foveros Direct.

The following are the intel IEDM 2021 highlights]

(1) Intel is conducting important research on basic scaling technology to introduce more transistors in future products.

First, the researchers outlined solutions to the design, process, and assembly challenges of hybrid bonded interconnects, which are expected to increase package interconnect density by more than 10 times.

In fact, at the Intel Accelerated event in July, the company has already announced plans to launch Foveros Direct. Featuring support for sub-10 micron bump spacing, it is expected to increase the interconnect density of 3D stacks by an order of magnitude.

In order for ecosystem partners to benefit from advanced packaging technologies such as small chips, Intel is also calling for new industry standards and test procedures.

Second, after ribbonFET surrounds the gate, Intel is leading the coming post-FinFET era by stacking multiple CMOS transistors.

Post-FinFETs are designed to achieve up to 30 to 50 percent logic scaling improvements to continue advancing Moore's Law by cramming more transistors per m㎡.

In addition, Intel is committed to paving the way for a new era of Moore's Law through forward-looking research. Research shows how novel materials with a thickness of several atoms can be used to make transistors that overcome the limitations of traditional silicon channels.

Looking ahead to the next decade, we are expected to usher in more powerful computing products that add millions of transistors per unit of chip area.

(2) What new features is Intel bringing to chips?

By being the first on a 300mm wafer to implement gallium nitride (GaN)-based power switching, combined with silicon-based CMOS, Intel is advancing more efficient power device technology.

In other words, this lays the foundation for high-speed power supply and lower power losses for cpUs, while reducing the need for motherboard components and space, in addition to an industry-leading low-latency read/write experience.

Thanks to new ferroelectric materials and next-generation DRAM technology, it helps provide greater memory resources to solve the increasingly complex problems faced by computing applications ranging from games to artificial intelligence.

(3) Intel is pursuing tremendous performance through silicon transistor-based quantum computing and a new switch assembly.

Many companies in the industry are looking to equipment that can operate at room temperature to drive large-scale energy-efficient computing.

Going forward, new devices based on new physics concepts are expected to replace the classic 'metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors' (MOSFETs).

It is worth mentioning that at IEDM 2021, Intel demonstrated the world's first magnetoelectric spin orbital (MESO) logic device at room temperature, implying the potential possibility of manufacturing a new transistor based on switching nanomagnets.

In addition, Intel and IMEC have made new progress in spin electronic materials research, and integrated research has brought devices one step closer to achieving full-featured spin torque.

Finally, Intel demonstrated a complete 300mm qubit process for enabling scalable quantum computing compatible with CMOS manufacturing, and has identified subsequent research directions.