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High performance flexible electronics promise innovative future technology for various interactive applications for the pursuit of low-cost, light-weight, and multi-functional devices. Thus, here we show a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible fabrication of flexible metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors (MOSCAPs) with high-κ/metal gate stack, using a physical vapor deposition (PVD) cost-effective technique to obtain a high-quality Ge channel. We report outstanding bending radius ∼1.25 mm and semi-transparency of 30%. (© 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the effectiveness of tin (Sn), by alloying it with silicon, to use SiSn as a channel material to extend the performance of silicon based complementary metal oxide semiconductors. Our density functional theory based simulation shows that incorporation of tin reduces the band gap of Si(Sn). We fabricated our device with SiSn channel material using a low cost and scalable thermal diffusion process of tin into silicon. Our high-κ/metal gate based multi-gate-field-effect-transistors using SiSn as channel material show performance enhancement, which is in accordance with the theoretical analysis. (© 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate a new thin film transistor (TFT) architecture that allows expansion of the device width using continuous fin features - termed as wavy channel (WC) architecture. This architecture allows expansion of transistor width in a direction perpendicular to the substrate, thus not consuming extra chip area, achieving area efficiency. The devices have shown for a 13% increase in the device width resulting in a maximum 2.5× increase in 'ON' current value of the WCTFT, when compared to planar devices consuming the same chip area, while using atomic layer deposition based zinc oxide (ZnO) as the channel material. The WCTFT devices also maintain similar 'OFF' current value, ∼100 pA, when compared to planar devices, thus not compromising on power consumption for performance which usually happens with larger width devices. This work offers an interesting opportunity to use WCTFTs as backplane circuitry for large-area high-resolution display applications. (© 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the inherent increase in capacitance per unit planar area of state-of-the art high- κ integrated metal/insulator/metal capacitors (MIMCAPs) fabricated on flexible silicon fabric with release-first process. We methodically study and show that our approach to transform bulk silicon (100) into a flexible fabric adds an inherent advantage of enabling higher integration density dynamic random access memory (DRAM) on the same chip area. Our approach is to release an ultra-thin silicon (100) fabric (25 µm thick) from the bulk silicon wafer, then build MIMCAPs using sputtered aluminium electrodes and successive atomic layer depositions (ALD) without break-ing the vacuum of a high- κ aluminium oxide sandwiched between two tantalum nitride layers. This result shows that we can obtain flexible electronics on silicon without sacrificing the high density integration aspects and also utilize the non-planar geometry associated with fabrication process to obtain a higher integration density compared to bulk silicon integration due to an increased normalized capacitance per unit planar area. (© 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate a simple, low-cost, and scalable process for obtaining uniform, smooth surfaced, high quality mono-crystalline germanium (100) thin films on silicon (100). The germanium thin films were deposited on a silicon substrate using plasma-assisted sputtering based physical vapor deposition. They were crystallized by annealing at various temperatures ranging from 700 °C to 1100 °C. We report that the best quality germanium thin films are obtained above the melting point of germanium (937 °C), thus offering a method for in-situ Czochralski process. We show well-behaved high- κ /metal gate metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors (MOSCAPs) using this film. (© 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A low‐cost simple thin film deposition of tin (Sn), followed by thermal annealing based alloying of it into the silicon channel, leads to an enhancement of the performance of silicon‐based CMOS devices. Modelling based on density functional theory (DFT) shows that Sn incorporation may lower the band gap of the silicon channel, while the experimental multi‐gate field effect transistor devices show performance enhancement. Additionally, the device performance analysis indicates its promising usage in low standby power applications for ultra‐mobile computation. The study by Aftab M. Hussain et al. (pp. 332–335) opens up further exploration opportunity for group IV(a) (in the periodic table) based materials for channel engineering in semiconductor device technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As shown by Hanna et al. (pp. 248–251), by gENerating a wavy architecture in classical transistor topology, high output currENt is achieved – opENing up bold futuristic opportunity for ultra ‐ high resolution bright display. Irrespective of the material choice – the unique architecture can provide exciting thin film transistor performance ENhancemENt.Hanna et al. demonstrate the advantage of using the wavy architecture in terms of area efficiENcy, higher output currENt, higher field ‐ effect mobility and similar OFF currENt levels and Ion/Ioff ratios compared to the planar counterparts for a thin film transistor fabricated with zinc oxide channel material. The low OFF currENt levels and high Ion/Ioff ratios for the wavy ‐ channel devices ENsure that standby power consumption remains similar to the planar counterparts, while improving the ON currENt values. This proves the significance of this new architecture for large ‐ area high ‐ resolution display applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]