Intel wants junctionless transistors

SEMICONDUCTOR GIANT Intel has said that it will spend more than $1.5 million in a research collaboration with the Tyndall National Institute at the University of Cork in Ireland to develop junctionless transistors.

Tyndall boffins recently published a research paper on the junctionless transistor and this seems to have attracted Chipzilla's attention.

Professor Jean-Pierre Colinge of Tyndall said that junctionless transistors could be implemented commercially at around the 20nm manufacturing node.

What they managed to work out was how to have a control gate around a silicon wire that measures just a few dozen atoms across. The gate can be used to "squeeze" the electron channel to nothing, therefore not needing a junction.

The junctionless transistor could simplify manufacturing of transistors at around the 10-nanometer stage by making the structure simpler.

The structure is more power efficient and lower temperature than classical transistors, while still having CMOS compatibility.

Intel is clearly excited about the technology. It normally does not do such education deals, however in this case it will assign R&D teams inside the company along with those at the Irish university. µ