A new breakthrough could make chips smaller, faster, and use less energy even for cold quantum devices. Find out more!
Making electronic components smaller has become difficult, a challenge the chip industry has faced for years. You might wonder why shrinking chips isn’t straightforward. The problem is that as components get smaller, traditional methods start to fail. Fluctuations in doping, sensitivity to temperature, and energy use become issues. This is important for technologies that need to work at very low temperatures, like quantum devices.
Researchers at TU Wien have now achieved a breakthrough. For the first time, they have manufactured a silicon-germanium (SiGe) transistor using a new method. This approach could let chips become smaller, while making them faster, using less energy, and able to operate at low temperatures, something classical transistors need to do when working with quantum bits.
The method focuses on the transistor’s oxide layer, which is doped to create a long-range effect reaching into the semiconductor. Instead of doping the semiconductor crystal directly, this method, called modulation acceptor doping (MAD), lets the oxide layer influence the semiconductor’s conductivity from a distance. This improves electrical performance without adding foreign atoms into the crystal, which also reduces random fluctuations that become a problem as transistors shrink.
Traditional electronic components use semiconductors like silicon or germanium that are mixed with tiny amounts of other atoms. This process, called doping, changes how electric charges move and controls conductivity. It has worked for decades, but as transistors get very small, random variations in doping cause problems. Millions or billions of tiny transistors need to work together, so these variations can create errors. Temperature also matters: chips must avoid heat, but very low temperatures can slow down charges, which is important for quantum computing.
The new SiGe MAD technology solves these problems. Instead of changing the crystal directly, it controls conductivity through the oxide layer. This makes transistors smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient. It works for both regular electronics and devices that need very low temperatures, like quantum chips.
