III-V CMOS: What have we learned from HEMTs?

Abstract

The ability of Si CMOS to continue to scale down transistor size while delivering enhanced logic performance has recently come into question. An end to Moore's Law threatens to bring to a halt the microelectronics revolution: a historical 50 year run of exponential progress in the power of electronics that has profoundly transformed human society. The outstanding transport properties of certain III-V compound semiconductors make these materials attractive to address this problem. This paper outlines the case for III-V CMOS, harvests lessons from recent research on III-V High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) and summarizes some of the key challenges in front of a future III-V logic technology.