Advanced Nanoelectronic Device Design with Atomistic Simulations

现代cpu由数十亿个纳米晶体管组成。为了使这些纳米晶体管可用，它们的性能特征变化最小是必不可少的。然而，确保数十亿晶体管在其关键器件特性上几乎没有变化是一个巨大的挑战。在现代奈米电晶体的规模下，即使是结构几何上的原子变化，也会严重影响整个装置的效能。该项目将使用Blue Waters领先的计算系统来推导新模型，以便在现代纳米器件设计的关键阶段进行有效的可靠性预测。这将使基于科学和工程的探索成为可能，使我们的国家在半导体技术方面保持领先地位。该项目将使用与半导体行业共同开发的软件NEMO5来提出具体的下一代纳米晶体管。此外，许多学生将参与该项目，为我国未来一代劳动力的教育做出贡献。最先进的纳米器件的特征长度为几十或100个原子。在这些维度中，不可避免的几何波动，即使是一个或几个原子的量级，也会显著影响性能。因此，现代器件的设计必须考虑纳米结构对波动的敏感性，以及从早期器件一代中已知的其他重要参数。声子，即原子在晶格位置周围的振动，在这个尺度上对器件性能也有严重的影响。由于只有少数原子参与器件输运，电子与声子的相互作用基于全量子输运方法，该方法涵盖了小尺寸相干效应，如隧道效应和约束效应，以及器件缺陷上的非相干散射。虽然处理这个问题的量子传输方法是众所周知的，但它们的解决方案在数值上是出了名的昂贵。本项目有两个重点：1)由于最先进的物理模型，包括散射，下一代晶体管性能的不确定性预测；2)半导体-金属互连电阻的精确紧凑模型开发。

Modern CPUs are composed of billions of nanotransistors. To make these nanotransistors usable, it is essential that their performance characteristics vary minimally. However, ensuring that billions of transistors have little variation in their critical device characteristics is a huge challenge. At the scale of modern nanotransistors, even atomistic variations of the structure geometry can have a severe influence on overall device performance. This project will use the Blue Waters leadership computing system to derive new models to enable efficient reliability predictions of modern nanodevices at crucial milestones in their design. This will enable scientific and engineering based exploration of the end-of-the-roadmap device options, allowing our nation to remain the leader in semiconductor technologies. The project will use NEMO5, a software co-developed with the semiconductor industry, to propose concrete, next generation nanotransistors. Furthermore, many students will be involved in the project, contributing to the education of our nation's future generation workforce.The state-of-the art nanodevices have characteristic lengths in the order of tens or one hundred of atoms. In these dimensions, unavoidable geometry fluctuations, even if they are of the order of one or a few atoms, can significantly impact performance. Thus, the design of modern devices has to consider the sensitivity of the nanostructure to fluctuations, as well as other important parameters that are known from earlier device generations. Phonons, i.e. vibrations of atoms, around their lattice sites have a severe impact on the device performance at this scale as well. Since only a few atoms are involved in the device transport, the interaction of electrons with phonons is based on a full quantum transport method that covers small-size coherent effects such as tunneling and confinement as well as incoherent scattering on device imperfections. Although quantum transport methods that handle this are well known, their solution is notoriously numerically expensive. This project has two focal points: 1) uncertainty prediction of next-generation transistor performance due to state-of-the-art physics models including scattering and 2) accurate compact model development of semiconductor-metal interconnect resistance.