Nano-technology in a nutshell

M.C. Chang

Dept of Phys

ENIAC circa 1947

Physical characteristics:

• 17,468 vacuum tubes; 1,500 relays

• 60,000 pounds; 16,200 cubic feet

• 174 kilowatts (233 horsepower)

• 5,000 addition/sec. (~ same as Intel 4004)

• 5.25 MJoule/trajectory (~ fire an artillery shell)

Future prediction (Popular Mechanics, 1949):

• 1,500 vacuum tubes; 10 kilowatts

• 3,000 pounds (~ size of an automobile)

The invention of transistor

(1947, Bardeen, Brattain, Shockley)

• small size

• less electricity

• no movable part

• faster turn-on time

1956

The invention of IC

(1959, Kilby and Noyce)

Intel 4004 (1971)

2250 transistors

Pentium 4

4.2 million transistors

2000

A silicon single crystal

A silicon wafer

Moore’s law

Cost of Fab

Moore’s Second Law

$50B

$40B

360B

$20B

$10B

$0B1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010

Year

台積電晶圓六廠 台南科學園區 九百億台幣 十二吋晶圓 (why not smaller?) 0.13 微米

銅導線製程 (instead of Al)

Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS)

+ systems-on-a-chip (SOC) = multi-functional, mass production …

• mems microphone (PC, cellular phone)

• mems accelerometer (safety bag, Wii, PC, camera, air guitar…)

• other mems sensors (pressure, heat …)

• mems oscillator (replaces quartz)

• optical mems (VSCEL, micro projector)

• microfluid (printer…)

• biomems

• …

Cheaper, better, smaller, response time, energy consumption …

(lab-on-a-chip)

MEMS mirrorMotion sensor

DLP micro-projector

gene chip

Micro-fluid chip

Top-down approach

Bottom-up approach

Self-organized (or self-assembled) PbSe dots (on PbEuTe)

Carbon nanotube as nanowire

Buckminsterfullerene

1996

Buckminster Fuller

STM (Scanning Tunneling Microscope)

1980, Binning and Rohrer1986

Quantum corral made by 48 iron atoms (D. Eigler)

Nano-machine, molecular robot … etc

From sub-micron technology to nano-technology-- problems of this century

Emergence of quantum effectQuantum wireQuantum dotSelf-assembly device

Need better grasp of the fundamental physics of materials

How long can we keep enjoying the amazing progress?

A powerful computer in turn helps us explore the mystery of nature (high-Tc superconductor, DNA-coding, protein folding, drug design, better airplane… etc)