Self-assembled Inductors: A New Paradigm in Nanoelectronics Design

摘要在过去的几十年里，技术规模化一直是全球半导体产业发展的推动力。随着晶体管特征尺寸的不断缩小，工业已经实现了更大规模的集成、更高的运行速度和更低的制造成本。然而，对通信和计算芯片至关重要的无源器件（如电感器）的缩放却严重滞后。因此，今天的通信芯片的主要部分是由电感占据，而不是有源晶体管。当前平面光刻技术的固有特性限制了3D结构中更有效的组件的实用性。适当设计和制造尺寸小得多的三维螺旋电感器，可以产生与数百微米见方的大型平面电感器相当的性能。基于DNA支架的组装策略已被证明具有多种用途，包括3D结构，并且可以通过特定的化学识别基团设计并将附加功能纳入组装中。与并行工艺相结合，将功能结构集成到晶圆和电路中，为大大提高系统性能提供了许多机会。本研究涉及dna定向自组装电感（SAIs）的基本合成和集成，以及这种潜在新能力所带来的新型电路应用。具体来说，研究人员研究了：1)三维DNA螺旋的化学合成，以及各种纳米颗粒的附着，因此，不同的功能，DNA螺旋；2)开发可靠的方法，将这些sai并联集成到晶圆表面，并与引线形成电气连接，并进一步测试电感器的性能；3)利用仿真工具研究这些新型电感器的行为，以及基于3D SAIs的新型电路设计。

AbstractFor the past decades, technology scaling has been the driving force for the worldwide semiconductor industry. With the relentless reduction of transistor's feature size, industry has achieved larger-scale of integration, higher operation speed, and lower fabrication cost. However, the scaling of passive devices such as inductors, which are vital for communication and computation chips, is tremendously lagging behind. Consequently, the major portion of today's communication chip is occupied by the inductors, not active transistors. The intrinsic nature of the current planar lithographic technology limits the utility of the components that are more efficient with 3D structures. A properly designed and fabricated 3D spiral inductor with much smaller size could produce comparable performance a large planar inductor of several hundred microns square would. DNA scaffold-based assembling strategy has been demonstrated to form versatile, including 3D structures, and additional functionalities can be designed and incorporated into the assembly through specific chemical recognition groups. Combined with parallel process to integrate functional structures onto wafer and into circuits, they offer many opportunities that could greatly improve system's performance. This research involves the fundamental synthesis and integration of DNA-directed self-assembled inductors (SAIs), and the novel circuit applications rendered by this potential new capability. Specifically, the investigators study: 1) the chemical synthesis of 3D DNA spirals, and the attachment of various nanoparticles and therefore, different functionalities, to the DNA spirals; 2) the development of reliable ways to achieve parallel integration of such SAIs onto wafer surface and to form electrical connections to the leads, and further testing of the inductor performances; 3) the behavior of these novel inductors using simulation tools, and novel circuit designs based on the 3D SAIs.