Latest news with #GAAFET
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Chinese Researchers Say They Have a Fast, Silicon-Free Transistor
A team of researchers from Peking University claims to have developed a non-silicon transistor that is faster and more power-efficient than the latest tech in the industry. If the claim, which is published in the journal Nature Materials (out of London), is accurate, it would mean that China has bleeding-edge tech that could rival chips from Intel and TSMC, among others. Still, it's a long way from publishing a research paper to turning the tech industry on its head. The team developed a two-dimensional transistor using bismuth oxyselenide. The team's transistor has Gate-all-around technology, the latest field-effect transistor technology. It replaces FinFET. Because GAAFET means less current leakage and helps chip makers create ever-smaller transistors, the inclusion of GAA in the research team's silicon-alternative efforts is crucial. Although the 2D bismuth transistor tech can potentially be more sturdy than silicon, the biggest draw for China could be that it might be able to use equipment it already has to produce transistors on a large scale. Interestingly, the team says that it managed to test its own transistor tech against Intel, Samsung, and TSMC technology and that it performed better than all of them, according to Tom's Hardware. That's a bold claim to make, and we'll believe it when we see it. Even before China and the US became embroiled in the Trump administration's tariffs, the US took steps to prevent China from getting its hands on the latest technology, including silicon transistors. In the face of these roadblocks, China has looked for ways to compete with the world's cutting-edge tech with different materials and home-brewed software. One of the more surprising examples of its occasional success is DeepSeek, which splashed onto the large language model (LLM) AI scene and battered Nvidia's stock (for a time). The fear with technology from China is that the country will use it to collect data on foreign states and their citizens. DeepSeek, for example, appears to be sending user data to China. Huawei, which is based in China, has been looking for ways to produce better processors, but has been challenged by roadblocks put up by the US. Although the research team doesn't indicate that Huawei has shown interest in its new transistor tech, it wouldn't be surprising if Huawei and others use it as a way to work around the limitations of their aging lithography machines.
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
TSMC discloses N2 defect density — lower than N3 at the same stage of development
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. TSMC exposed the defect density (D0) of its N2 process technology relative to its predecessors at the same stage of development at its North American Technology Symposium this week. According to the company, the defect density is below that of N3, N5, and N7 manufacturing nodes. In addition, the slide published by ComputerBase reveals that N2 is two quarters away from mass production, which means that TSMC is on-track to start making 2nm-class chips in late Q4 2025, as expected. Although TSMC's N2 is the company's first process technology to adopt gate-all-around (GAA) nanosheet transistors, the node has lower defect density than its predecessors at the same stage of development, two quarters before mass production (MP). The predecessors — N3/N3P, N5/N4, and N7/N6 — all relied on well-known FinFET transistors. So, despite being TSMC's first node using GAA nanosheet transistors, the N2 defect density is getting lower quicker (well, steeper) than that of its predecessors before the high volume manufacturing (HVM) milestone. The chart plots defect density against time, spanning from three quarters before mass production through six quarters after MP. Across all nodes shown — N7/N6 (green), N5/N4 (violet), N3/N3P (red), and N2 (blue) — defect densities drop significantly as production ramps, though at different rates depending on node complexity. Notably, N5/N4 displayed the most aggressive early defect reduction, while N7/N6 showed a more gradual yield improvement. The N2 curve begins with higher initial defect levels than N5/N4 but declines sharply, closely matching the defect reduction trajectory of N3/N3P. The slide emphasizes that production volume and product diversity remain the key drivers for accelerating defect density improvements. Larger production volumes and a wide variety of products using the same process enable faster identification and correction of defect density and yield issues, enabling TSMC to optimize defect learning cycles. TSMC stated that its N2 fabrication technology got more new tape outs than predecessors (as TSMC now risks producing N2 chips for smartphone and HPC customers), so the defect density decrease curve mostly proves that. The fact that N2's defect reduction rate aligns well with previous FinFET-based nodes is particularly significant, given the risk factors associated with introducing an all-new transistor architecture. It suggests that TSMC has successfully transferred its process learning and defect management expertise into the new GAAFET era without major setbacks (at least based on what TSMC discloses). Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Chinese university designed 'world's first silicon-free 2D GAAFET transistor,' claims new bismuth-based tech is both the fastest and lowest-power transistor yet
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A research team from Peking University has published its findings on a two-dimensional, low-power GAAFET transistor, the first of its kind in the world. Led by Professor Peng Hailin and Qiu Chenguang, the multi-disciplinary team published in Nature, with some team members calling the discovery nothing short of a monumental breakthrough. The Peking team has fabricated what the paper describes as a "wafer-scale multi-layer-stacked single-crystalline 2D GAA configuration." "It is the fastest, most efficient transistor ever," said Peng of his team's breakthrough. 'If chip innovations based on existing materials are considered a 'short cut,' then our development of 2D material-based transistors is akin to 'changing lanes,'' continues Peng in a statement for Peking University's website (accessed via South China Morning Post). The team claims to have tested their transistor against products from Intel, TSMC, Samsung, and elsewhere, where it outperformed them under matching operating conditions. To break down the technobabble, we must start with GAAFET. Gate-all-around field-effect transistors, GAAFET for short, are the next evolution of transistor technology after MOSFETs and FINFETs. Innovation in transistors has largely been driven by better control of sources and gates communication; MOSFETs have a source touched on one plane by a gate, FINFETs have three planes touch their gates, where gate-all-around surrounds sources in their intersecting gates, as the name would imply. Below is Samsung's illustrative diagram on the differences (plus Samsung's proprietary MBCFET version of GAAFET). GAAFET transistors are nothing new; the transistor technology is essential for fabricating microchips at 3nm and below. Peking's major innovation comes from the two-dimensional nature of their transistors, facilitated by using an element other than silicon. Bi₂O₂Se, or bismuth oxyselenide, is a semiconductor material studied for its use in sub-1nm process nodes for years, largely thanks to its ability to be a 2D semiconductor. Two-dimensional semiconductors, like 2D Bi₂O₂Se, are more flexible and sturdy at a small scale than silicon, which runs into reduced carrier mobility at even the 10nm node. Such breakthroughs into stacked 2D transistors and the move from silicon to bismuth are exciting for the future of semiconductors and are necessary for the Chinese industry to compete on the leading edge of semiconductors. Thanks to a U.S.-China trade war over chips and modern technology, China finds itself cut off from tools like EUV lithography that enable the production of processors on nodes that the rest of the tech world has been producing for nearly a decade. As a result, China has invested heavily in research that will allow it to leapfrog the current state of the tech industry, not content to catch up merely. While 2D GAAFET transistors may not be the future of semiconductor fabrication, the study represents burgeoning young minds in China prepared to innovate on what is possible to push the industry forward. As the United States stands ready to ramp up its trade embargoes and restrictions against China's tech access, including a potential ban on GAAFET technology, China's tech industry is racing against the clock of warring empires.
