Nov. 23, 2004 – Infineon Technologies AG (NYSE: IFX, News, Web) has created what it’s calling the world’s smallest carbon nanotube-based transistor, another step on the road to seeking a replacement to silicon in microelectronic devices.
The Munich-based semiconductor and systems developer said in a news release that the transistor’s channel length is 18 nanometers, with about one-quarter that of the most advanced transistors currently in production. To build it, researchers grew nanotubes measuring no more than 1.1 nanometers in diameter in a controlled process.
The work, funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research, builds on Infineon’s own nano-related efforts, as well as those by IBM. IBM researchers in the past couple of years have demonstrated the world’s first logic-performing computer circuit from a nanotube, created the most powerful nanotube transistors available and devised a new technique of producing arrays of nanotube transistors.