IEDM 2014 Preview

The International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) is one of the premier conferences for the presentation of the latest semiconductor processes and process technologies. IEDM is held every year in December alternating between San Francisco and Washington DC. This year IEDM will be held at the San Francisco Hilton on December 15[SUP]th[/SUP], 16[SUP]th[/SUP] and 17[SUP]th[/SUP].

My company, IC Knowledge LLC produces the most widely used semiconductor and MEMS cost models in the world today. One of the keys to accurate modeling is building process flows that represent the latest processes. IEDM is a key conference for me to keep up with the state-of-the-art and I will be in San Francisco this year.

The conference preliminary schedule is out and I wanted to highlight what I thought were some of the most interesting papers.

Typically my favorite session of the conference each year is the “Advanced CMOS Technology Platform” session. This is a session where the major logic producers square off against each other for bragging rights to the highest performance and or densest processes. This year’s session will be held Monday afternoon and looks really strong. TSMC is scheduled to present what looks to be their 16FF+ process, Intel will present their 14nm FinFET process and IBM will be presenting their 14nm FinFET on SOI process. This session should give a clearer picture of how the major competing 14/16nm FinFET platforms compare.

Tuesday morning more advanced CMOS technology will be presented in the “Advanced CMOS Devices for 10nm Node and Beyond” session. ST Micro with CEA-LETI, IBM and SOITEC will present work on a 10nm FDSOI process.

Tuesday afternoon has a session on “Nano Device Technology – Ge and SiGe Transistors” that will feature additional work from IBM/Global Foundries and ST Micro, CEA-LETI and SOITEC with SiGe PMOS devices on SOI and TSMC’s work on Ge FinFETs. Also on Tuesday afternoon the “Memory Technology – MRAM, DRAM and NAND” session has a Samsung paper on emerging SST-MRAM although as is often the case at IEDM, it is at the same time as the ST Micro, CEA-LETI and SOITEC paper. IBM will also present their 22nm embedded DRAM technology in this session. One disappointment for me the last several years that continues this year is the leading memory providers no longer present their latest NAND and DRAM processes.

Wednesday morning the “Power and Compound Semiconductor Devices – III-V for Logic” session will showcase the latest results in III-V devices for logic.

Wednesday afternoon will see the “Process and Manufacturing Technology – Advanced Process Modules” session with an IBM paper on 10nm and below interconnect.

These are just some of the key papers from my perspective that have caught my eye. There is a growing number of MEMS papers at IEDM and I will be filling in with a number of MEMS papers for my MEMS modeling work.

After IEDM is over I will follow this up with a blog describing the papers.

About IEDM
With a history stretching back 60 years, the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) is the world’s pre-eminent forum for reporting technological breakthroughs in the areas of semiconductor and electronic device technology, design, manufacturing, physics, and modeling. IEDM is the flagship conference for nanometer-scale CMOS transistor technology, advanced memory, displays, sensors, MEMS devices, novel quantum and nano-scale devices and phenomenology, optoelectronics, devices for power and energy harvesting, high-speed devices, as well as process technology and device modeling and simulation. The conference scope not only encompasses devices in silicon, compound and organic semiconductors, but also in emerging material systems. IEDM is truly an international conference, with strong representation from speakers from around the globe.

In 2014 there is an increased emphasis on circuit and process technology interaction, energy harvesting, bio-snesors and bioMEMS, power devices, magnetics and spintronics, two dimensional electronics and devices for non-Boolean computing.