MY ROAD TO

SEMICONDUCTOR
RESEARCH

Toh-Ming Lu

Citation: Lu, Toh-Ming (2023). My road to semiconductor research. In: "Evolutionary Progress
in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics", Wang, Lawrence K. and Tsao,
Hung-ping (Editors). Volume 5, Number 8A, 5(8A), August 1, 2023, 33 pages. Lenox
Institute Press, Auburndale, Massachusetts, USA. Lenox.Institute@gmail.com; lut@rpi.edu.
https://doi.org/10.17613/71gt-h283
My Road to Semiconductor Research
Toh-Ming Lu

Bardeen-Shockley-Brattain (1948) Dr. Shyam Murarka

SRC annual review in 2002.

i
Abstract
This electronic book is a memoir recalling how I entered semiconductor
research and how I got involved in the US semiconductor research
consortium called “Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC)”. In the
late 1990’s I became the director of “Center for Advanced Interconnect
Science and Technology” funded by SRC. The Center involved 15
universities, 30 faculty, and 40 graduate students doing advanced
interconnect research. SRC member companies include Intel, IBM, AMD,
TI, UMC (Taiwan), Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Singapore).
The Center produced over 100 PhD students who later played leadership
roles in semiconductor industry. In 2004, Novellus Systems, a major
semiconductor manufacturing equipment company, donated a Cu
deposition system to Fudan University in anticipation of future business
in China. The company organized a workshop in Shanghai. I highlighted
some of the activities. I also described some international students
graduated from my group, in particular, the interesting and unusual
educational and career paths of some Chinese graduate students, who
eventually served semiconductor industry. Some future possibilities
beyond the current Si technology are also briefly discussed.

ii
Key words: vacuum tubes, semiconductor transistors, integrated circuits,
interconnect, Semiconductor Research Corporation, Novellus Systems,
beyond Si technology, quantum physics, quantum computing.

Acknowledgement: I thank Professor Jian Shi for valuable discussions

on future computing strategies.

iii
Bio sketches
Dr. Toh-Ming Lu was born in Sibu, Sarawak,
Malaysia in 1944. He earned a BS degree in
physics in 1968 from Cheng Kung
University, Tainan, Taiwan and a PhD degree
in physics in 1976 from University of
Wisconsin, Madison.

Dr. Lu joined Rensselaer Polytechnic

Institute (RPI) in 1982. He had been the Ray
Palmer Baker Distinguished Professor of
physics until 2022 when he transitioned to a Senior Research Scientist
position.

He served as the Chairman of the Department of Physics, Applied Physics

and Astronomy, RPI from 1992 to 1997. Dr. Lu published over 580
papers, 9 books, 12 patents, and graduated 51 Ph.D. students, who have
assumed leadership positions in major semiconductor companies.

His research interest has been in the area of semiconductors for advanced
electronics and energy applications. His honors include Materials
Research Society Medal Award in 2004 and Semiconductor Research
Corporation Faculty Leadership Award in 2015. He is Fellow of four
major societies: American Physical Society, American Vacuum Society,
American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, and the Materials
Research Society.

Dr. Lu is also interested in teaching and learning pedagogy

(https://doi.org/10.17613/jk0e-ph89). His other interests include
cosmology (https://doi.org/10.17613/j2ay-4898) and anthropology. His
hobby includes oil painting: (https://doi.org/10.17613/k9f1-y534).

iv
Table of contents Page
Chapter 1. Introduction 1
1-1. Materials discoveries and advancement of civilization 1
1-2. Vacuum tubes 2
1-3. Semiconductor transistors 4
1-4. Technology nodes 6
1-5. Integrated circuits 7

Chapter 2. On the road to semiconductor research 8

2-1. Interviewing at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 8
2-2. The Plaza Accord 11
2-3. Interconnect research 12
2-4. RC delay and the speed of interconnect 13
2-5. SRC Center for Advanced Interconnect Science and 16
Technology
2-6. The rise of semiconductor industry in Asia 18

Chapter 3. The Novellus Connection 20

3-1. Novellus-Fudan Cu interconnect workshop 20
3-2. Invitees and attendees 20

v
3-3. Visiting SMIC 22

Chapter 4. International graduate students 23

4-1. Entering Chinese graduate students 23
4-2. Serving semiconductor industry 24

Chapter 5. Towards the end of Si technologies 26

5-1. Architectures of advanced Si technologies 26
5-2. Gate All Around technology 27

Chapter 6. Beyond Si technology 28

6-1. Future possibilities 28
6-2. Quantum computing 29
6-3. Quantum Physics 31

Chapter 7. Conclusion remarks 32

7-1. Quantum communication 32
7-2. Export control 33

vi
My Road to Semiconductor Research
Chapter 1. Introduction
1-1. Materials discoveries and advancement of civilization
Throughout human history, materials discoveries and usage play a key
role in the advancement of civilization. In the Bronze Age (3000 BC), the
developing of copper, with cast tools and weapons, was a key factor
leading to urbanization. The development of iron tools (1200 BC) led to
the agriculture society. The use of coal sparked the steam engine invention
(1720). This was the first industrial revolution. The utilization of oil (1864)
led to the second industrial revolution with the invention of automobile
and heavy machinery. The use of “man-made” quantum materials,
semiconductors (1945), steered the third industrial revolution where
modern information technology is based on.

The operation principles of semiconductor devices are based on quantum

physics which was discovered in the 1920’s. Quantum physics was
eventually applied to solids and the interfaces between different solids.
This had guided the invention of transistors in 1945. Integration of many
such transistors and other devices such as memory is what we know as

1
“integrated circuits”. Integrated circuits are the foundation of modern
computers, cell phones, etc.

1-2. Vacuum tubes

When I was in college, I learned the operation of vacuum tubes in our
electronic course. Fig. 1-1(a) shows a schematic of how a vacuum tube
amplifier works. Fig. 1-1(b) shows a real vacuum tube device.

(a) (b)

https://www.engineering.com/story/vacuum-tubes-the-world-before-transistors.

Fig. 1-1(a). Schematic of a vacuum tube amplifier. Fig.1-1(b). A real vacuum tube
device.

The vacuum tube contains three components: cathode, control grid, and
anode. Cathode is a filament where electrons can be generated simply by
heating it (passing a current through it). Electrons are emitted from the
cathode. An input bias is applied to the control grid to attract electrons.

2
The control grid is placed between the cathode and anode. The grid has
holes that allow elections to pass through. By adjusting the voltage
applied to the grid, you can control the number of electrons flowing from
the cathode to the anode. The more you increase the grid voltage, the more
electrons can pass through it, and the higher the anode current. This is the
amplification effect of a triode. The triode can serve as a signal amplifier
as well as an on/off switch.

One of the challenges using vacuum tubes as building units to make

functional systems such as computers and cell phones is the size of the
devices. For example, in our cell phone, there are many billions of
switching devices. It is, of course, out of the question to use vacuum tubes
to build the cell phone. Even if you can build it, the energy required to run
it is also insanely high. Just imagine the challenge of burning billions of
filaments to generate electrons.

We therefore need something smaller, much smaller than the vacuum

tubes. Not only smaller, but also requires much less energy to operate it.
Solid state devices using semiconductors would fit the requirement.

3
Semiconductor transistors

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Field-effect transistor
Fig. 1-3. Inventors of transistor:
Fig. 1-2. Schematic of a Bardeen-Shockley-Brattain (1948).
Metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor.

Fig. 1-2 shows a schematic of a semiconductor transistor, known as field

effect metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor. The source is the electron
emitter, similar to that of the filament (cathode) in the vacuum tube shown
in Fig. 1. The gate and the drain play the roles of control grid and anode
in vacuum tube, respectively. When a bias is applied to the gate, electrons
flow from source to drain through the channel indicated by the red arrow.
How does the channel take place?

This is where quantum physics comes into play. Without going into detail,
for our purpose, quantum effect can create a conduction path between the

4
source and drain and let the electrons passing through the narrow channel
in between the insulator (oxide) and the semiconductor when a bias is
applied at the gate.

Note that the original transistor invented by Bardeen, Shockley, and

Brattain (Fig. 1-3) was not a metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor. It was
a “bipolar transistor”. It was not silicon, but another semiconductor called
germanium (Ge). But the amplification effect and the switching function
are similar to that of the metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor.

The metal-oxide-semiconductor shown in Fig. 1-2 can also be used as a

memory device. Instead of letting the current
pass through the channel, one can store the
charge under the oxide. It is basically a
“capacitor” where the charge is stored under
the oxide and can serve as a memory device. A
typical memory cell is often consisted of a Fig. 1-4. Schematic of a
trench capacitor.
transistor and a capacitor. The amount of
charge stored under the oxide depends on the area. Therefore, instead of
the planar structure, one can create a trench structure with the oxide layer

5
surrounding the inner trench (see the schematic in Fig. 1-4). More charge
can be accumulated in the capacitor to increase the performance of the
memory.

1-3. Technology nodes

Next, the technology nodes such as 14 nm technology, 7 nm technology,
5 nm technology, etc. shall be discussed briefly. For simplicity, one
defines the technology node as the length of half-a-pitch. A pitch is the
distance between the source and drain. This is a rough definition. Different
companies define the technology node differently. It is particularly
troublesome and confusing when the device structure deviates from the
planar structure like the one shown in Fig. 1-2. Most advanced devices are
typically three-dimensional in order to further shrink the dimension of
individual device and to accommodate more devices in a given area. The
more devices you can squeeze into a small area, the larger the density of
the devices per unit area. The larger the density, the more powerful the
operation of the devices.

6
1-4. Integrated circuits (ICs)

https://www.wellpcb.com/i
ntegrated-circuits.html

Fig. 1-5. Left: single transistor. Middle: integrated chip with billions of transistors. Right:
combined with other functional chips Such as memory chip to form a final product.

Fig. 1-5 illustrates how the transistors are integrated to form the final
product. Semiconductor industry was created in the 1960s and 1970s: in
Japan, there were Toshiba, Fujitsu, NEC, Hitachi, and in the US, we have
TI, Intel, Fairchild, AMD, Motorola. Applications include computers,
mobile devices, etc.

7
Chapter 2. On the road to semiconductor research
2-1. Interviewing at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
In the spring of 1982. I was interviewed for a junior
faculty position at the Center for Integrated
Electronics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy,
NY. This was a newly created Center and Dr. Andy
Steckl was the Center Director. (See Fig. 2-1). Dr.
Fig. 2-1. Dr. Andy
Steckl
Steckl is now a professor at The University of
Cincinnati.

At that time, I had an offer from another school. Dr. Steckl was very
persuasive. He argued that semiconductors would have the most impact
on life and everything. It was the main-stream technology with the largest
employment for science and engineering students. But there was an
opposite view from my mentor back in Wisconsin, “Why into
semiconductors? US semiconductor industry like US steel, was going to
be taken over by Japan.” Indeed, this was absolutely true. At that time,
Japanese semiconductor products dominated the worldwide market with
their superior manufacturing capability.

8
To compete with the Japanese manufacturing, the US semiconductor
companies got together and formed a consortium called “Semiconductor
Research Corporation (SRC)”. Each company contributed funds to the
consortium based on the company’s sales. The money was distributed to
US universities to conduct research that was relevant to the needs of
semiconductor manufacturing. In addition to the research targets, the most
important goal was to produce semiconductor manufacturing workforce.
That included advanced degrees in semiconductor manufacturing. SRC
was like a funding agency similar to that of government funding agencies
such as National Science Foundation, The Air Force Office of Scientific
Research, The Office of Naval Research, Army Research Office, and
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where faculty in
the US universities could submit proposals that were relevant to
semiconductor manufacturing. SRC was eventually turned into GRC
(Global Research Corporation) that included some international
semiconductor companies.

In 1982, my first research contract was from SRC. A few years later, I was
invited to give a talk at a semiconductor related conference in Washington
DC. The room was dark, when I walked into the room, there were over

9
700 people in the audience. This was a shock to me. Before that I was
doing surface physics research. When I gave a talk at surface physics
related conference, there were at most 30 to 40 people in the audience. I
then began to fully understand and appreciated what Dr. Steckl’ mean by
“main-stream technology”.

Each year, SRC held a conference for students and faculty to present their
research results in front of the scientists and engineers represented by the
companies known as the industry liaisons. It was also a forum for SRC
member companies to meet students for potential employment. SRC also
invited prominent speakers to address the future of semiconductor
industry. I remember one year, SRC invited a prominent economist, Lester
Thurow (see Fig. 2-2), Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management to
give a talk on the competitiveness of semiconductor industry between the
US and Japan. His conclusion was dire. He argued how Japanese
semiconductor manufacturing was unbeatable. That did not bode well
with the organizer and the audience, of course.
Remember, the purpose of SRC was to compete
with Japan. Note that SRC excluded Japanese
Fig. 2-2. Dr. Lester Thurow
companies to join as members.

10
2-2. The Plaza Accord
Actually, the debate was not confined to
the SRC meetings. SRC member
companies as a group held many
meetings with government agencies to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
produce strategies to help the US Plaza_Accord
Fig. 2-3. The Plaza Accord
semiconductor industry to compete with meeting.

Japanese semiconductor industry.

The net result was the 1985 Plaza Accord (see Fig. 2-3) for government’s
currency intervention. James Baker III represented the US and Noboru
Takeshita represented Japan. The joint agreement was signed by France,
Germany, Japan, and the US to depreciate the US dollar relative to the
French franc, German mark, British pound, and Japanese yen. In addition,
the US placed a heavy duty on Japanese high end semiconductor products
(for example, 100 % tax for Toshiba’s products). This was the beginning
of the end of free market that we knew of.

11
The 1985 Plaza Accord had led to the domination of the US
semiconductor industry. For the hardware, the US had TI, Motorola, Intel,
Micron, AMD, and for the software the US had Microsoft.
2-3. Interconnect research
Now let me describe a bit what we were doing
in research. In addition to my semiconductor
devices research (including solar cell
research), I was heavily involved in on-chip
wiring research. The devices built on a Si chip
need to communicate to the outside world
through wiring on the chip. This wiring is
called “interconnect”. Fig. 2-4 illustrates the
idea. The brown color represents Cu lines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bac
k_end_of_line#/media/File:Cmos-
Near the bottom of devices, the density of chip_structure_in_2000s_(en).svg

interconnect is high due to the small size Fig. 2-4. A cross section of
multilevel chip interconnect.
devices. The interconnect density decreases
going up in the chip. A key research is on the materials used in the
interconnect. For many decades, Aluminum (Al) was the material of
choice due to its incredible air stability. Al is very easily oxidized when it
is exposed to air to form a very thin layer of stable Aluminum oxide. This

12
layer of oxide would protect Al from further oxidation. The household use
of Al foil is an example. It is shiny even after exposing in the ambient air
for a long time. However, Al has a relatively high resistivity compared
with some other metals which would slow down the speed of the chip.

2-4. RC Delay and the speed of interconnect

The key challenge of interconnect research is to lower the “RC delay”. “R”
refers to the resistivity of the metal line and “C” refers to the capacitance
of the insulator surrounding the metal lines. The charging and discharging
of the insulator when a signal is turned on or off is not instantaneous. For
example, when a step-like signal is sent to the circuit, the output signal
(either in the form of voltage or current) would take some time to decay.
To illustrate the issue, we consider only one capacitor connected to a
resistor.

Figure 2-5 (left) shows the response of a step-like signal to the capacitor-
resistor system. The graph represents an on-off switch of the device. The
width of the curve is approximately equal to the product of resistance R
and capacitance C. This on-off switch represents a “bit” of information.
Figure 2-5 (right) shows a sequence of bits during the operation. The

13
speed of the circuit is defined as the number of bits per second. If two
adjacent bits are too close, then the bits overlap, and one cannot resolve

Fig. 2-5. Left: the response of a sharp input signal of a resistance-capacitor system.
Right: repeated on-off signals (bits) of a resistance-capacitance system.

individual bits. This would be the limit of the speed of a circuit.

Note that the definition of speed here is different than the usual definition
of speed of an object which is defined as the distance travelled in a unit
of time, meter per second. It describes how fast an object travels. The
electromagnetic signal travels in vacuum are 3  108 meters per second.
The signal travels in a circuit are slower than that in vacuum. But it is still
very fast. This is not the limit of the operation of a circuit.

Therefore, the sharper the response signal, the faster the speed. To achieve
a sharper response, one needs a smaller value of RC. The goal of
improving the speed is therefore to reduce the RC delay. To reduce the R

14
value, one can choose a lower resistance metal. To reduce the capacitance,
one needs to choose a low dielectric constant dielectric material. The
lowest dielectric material is air which has a dielectric constant of 1. But
air is not realistic because it cannot separate the metal lines. The next best
thing is a porous dielectric material which is what many companies use.

For metals, our research had been to explore the feasibility of using Cu or
silver (Ag) as the interconnect material for their lower resistivity
compared to that of Al. This had been a challenging topic because Cu and
Ag are corrosive, and they need to be protected. We finally focused on Cu.
Actually, my favorite metal was Ag, not Cu. In my research, I found Ag
is more stable when it makes contacts with Si devices. I was invited to
give a talk at IBM on the metallization of advanced chips. After the talk,
I did a survey. Only 15% of the audience agreed with me and preferred
Ag. But 85% of them preferred Cu. Later, I heard that they were not in
favor of Ag because of their bad experience in Ag when they used it for
packaging application. They observed “Ag worms” where Ag would
diffuse around and form short circuit when the chip package was heated.
On the other hand, they had successfully applied Cu to fabricate metal
lines using an electro-chemical means.

15
2-5. SRC Center for Advanced Interconnect Science and Technology
At that time, a world-renowned scientist, Dr.
Shyam Murarka (see Fig. 2-6) retired from
Bell Laboratory and joined RPI in 1984 as a
faculty in the Materials Science and
Engineering Department. In 1996, he
established an SRC funded Center called
Fig. 2-6. Dr. Shyam Murarka.
“Center for Advanced Interconnect Science
and Technology, or (CAIST) at RPI where he
served as the Center Director and I as the Associate Director. A year later
(1997), he retired from RPI, and I took over his job and became the
Director. Over time, the Center involved 15 universities, 30 faculty and
40 graduate students conducting research in advanced interconnect
technology. Fig. 2-7 shows my CAIST
research review presentation at the 2002
Annual Meeting at RPI.

As the Center Director, I also travel

Fig. 2-7. Toh-Ming Lu gave a
extensively to member companies to report review presentation at the 2002
CAIST annual meeting at RPI.

16
the Center activities and research
progress. Domestic companies
include Intel, IBM, AMD (Advanced
Micro Devices), TI (Texas
Instruments). Asian companies include
UMC (United Microelectronics
Corporation) in Taiwan, later TSMC in
Taiwan also joined SRC. Chartered
https://www.src.org/about/corporate-
Semiconductor Manufacturing Inc.
annual/2005.pdf
Fig. 2-8. Toh-Ming Lu received The
(now Global Foundries) in Singapore is
SRC Faculty Leadership Award at
TECHCON 2005, Portland Oregon.
also a member company. CAIST
attracted the best graduate students to do research in the country, both
domestic and international students. By the time I stepped down as the
Director of CAIST in 2005, the center had produced over 100 PhD
students. They played leadership roles in the semiconductor industry. I
received “The SRC Faculty Leadership Award” in 2005 during the annual
meeting in Portland, Oregon. See Fig. 2-8.

17
2-6. The rise of semiconductor industry in Asia
Starting around 2000, semiconductor manufacturing began to move
outside the USA, in particular, to Korea and Taiwan. Japan, being very
strong in semiconductor manufacturing in the past, still played a
significant role, particularly in processing materials and lithography.
Samsung in Korea focused on memory chips while Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in Taiwan focused on
logic chips. Fig. 2-9 shows the founder of TSMC,
Morris Chang. TSMC had an interesting strategy.
They focused on manufacturing chips and no chip
design for themselves. So, there was no conflict of
Fig. 2-9. Morris
interest with the customers. Because of this strategy, Chang of TSMC.

they became so powerful and competitive.

Netherland also played a major role in chip manufacturing. Netherland’s

Advanced semiconductor materials international (ASML), produced the
most advanced lithography tools. Coming along there were SMIC
(Semiconductor Manufacturing International Company) for logic and
YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp) for memory, both in
mainland China.

18
There had been explosive expansion of applications in semiconductors,
th
5G (the 5 generation communication network), AI (artificial intelligence),
automobile, etc. In addition
to many consumer
electronics, light emitting
diodes (LED), solar cells,
drones and satellites also rely
on semiconductor devices.
Fig. 2-10. This chart shows the explosive
There are also increasingly applications of semiconductor chips. Ref: KLA, 2023
International Semiconductor Executive Summit,
medical and biological Phoenix AZ. (https://www.ises-usa.com/)

devices invented. See Fig. 2-

10.

19
Chapter 3. The Novellus connection
3-1. Novellus-Fudan Cu interconnect workshop
Novellus Systems is a major semiconductor
equipment manufacturing company who
specializes in chip fabrication tools. In 2004,
https://www.directorsandb
Novellus Systems President-CEO, Richard Hill oards.com/roster/individu
al/richard-s-hill
saw the potential business in China. He donated a
Fig. 3-1. Richard Hill,
semiconductor manufacturing equipment called CEO of Novellus Systems

Cu sputtering system to Fudan University. This is a sophisticated tool for

Cu coating in advanced chip fabrication. He invited a group of scientists
to participate in a workshop at Fudan University to celebrate the occasion
(Fig. 3-2).

3-2. Invitees and attendees

Duquette
The invitees included me from RPI, Duquette

Professor Paul Ho (former IBM employee)

from University of Texas at Austin,
Professor King Ning Tu (also former IBM
Fig. 3-2. 2004 Novellus-Fudan Cu
employee) from University of California at interconnect workshop at Fudan
University.
Los Angeles, and Professor David

20
Duquette from RPI. Lu, Ho, and Tu are
shown in Fig. 3-3. Professor Duquette is
L H T
shown in Fig. 3-4. The focus of the
workshop was on emerging Cu
technology. Duqu

Attendees included faculty and students Fig. 3-3. Partial list of speakers at the
Novellus-Fudan workshop for Cu
from Peking University, Tsinghua technology.

University and Fudan University. As part

of the workforce development, Fudan
University just created a new “School of
Microelectronics” to attract new students
pursuing advanced degrees in
Fig. 3-4. Professor David Duquette.
microelectronics. Engineers from local
semiconductor manufacturing
companies including Semiconductor
Manufacturing International Company,
Grace Semiconductor manufacturing,
and Hua Hong NEC Electronics also
Fig. 3-5. Presentation by Dr. Toh-
attended the workshop. I gave an Ming Lu entitled: “Dielectrics and
metal barriers for Cu technology”.
introductory talk on Cu technology

21
entitled: “Dielectrics and metal barriers for Cu technology” (Fig. 3-5).

3-3. Visiting SMIC

I also took the opportunity to visit SMIC,
located at Pudong, Shanghai. SMIC is a
semiconductor foundry in Shanghai founded
by Richard Chang in 2000. It is the largest
semiconductor manufacturing company in
Fig. 3-6. Visiting SMIC and met
China. with Dr. Richard Chang.

22
Chapter 4. International graduate students
4-1. Entering Chinese graduate students
Over the years, I had been fortunate enough to have many international
students working with me. That included many Chinese and Indian
students. They are incredibly talented. For Indian students, I was most
impressed by those who graduated from IIT (Indian Institutes of
Technology). Here I would like to mention the unusual educational and
career paths that some of the Chinese students took. In 1978, China
resumed college entrance exams. Students who took the exams had no
formal high school education. They had to self-study the relevant subjects
before they took the exams. These students were extremely hard-working
and talented.

By 1982, the first group of Chinese college students graduated. Many of

them came to the US pursuing advanced degrees in science and
engineering. Several of them came to RPI. I was fortunate enough to have
some of them working with me.

23
4-2. Serving semiconductor industry

https://www.crunchbase.co https://www.crunchbas https://www.linkedin.

m/person/simon-yang e.com/person/peng-bai com/in/wen-tao-
Fig. 4-1. Dr. Simon Yang Fig. 4-2. Dr. Peng Bai steve-liu-a4aa0922
Fig. 4-3. Dr. Steve
Wen Tao Liu

Here I list some former Chinese students who went to work for
semiconductor industry. Simon Yang (Fig. 4-1), CEO and founder
of Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp in Wuhan. Prior to that, he had
served as VP for Logic Development, SMIC, Shanghai and CTO of
Chartered Semiconductor (now Global foundries) in Singapore. After he
graduated in 1987, he interviewed at IBM. The technical managers were
in favor of hiring him as a technical staff. But the Human Resource
division denied his application because he was not a US citizen. He then
interviewed at Intel. Intel had a department helping international students
to apply for a permanent resident visa. Dr. Yang worked in Intel for over
10 years before he joined SMIC in Shanghai as VP for Logic Development.

24
Dr. Peng Bai (Fig. 4-2) is Corporate Vice President and General Manager
of Logic Technology Development. I remember after he interviewed at
Intel, the recruiting manager called me to discuss this case. He indicated
that Dr. Bai’s thesis work was on Cu technology. But Intel’s main line
technology was Al, not Cu. I argued that in my opinion you really want to
hire a scientist with a good brain, not what he was working on when he
was a student. Dr. Bai stayed at Intel till today.

The next one is Dr. Steve Liu (Fig. 4-3). He has served as CEO of multiple
companies, including the President and CEO of Shanghai Huahong NEC
Electronics Company (now HHGRACE) from 2003 to 2009. He is
currently Managing Director of PeilinCapital in California.

25
Chapter 5. Towards the end of Si technologies
5-1. Architectures of advanced Si devices
The shrinking of Si devices has
been the main effort by
semiconductor manufacturers.
Below 16 nm technology,
Fig. 5-1. Left: Traditional field effect
Semiconductor companies had transistor (Fet). Right: 3D Finfet transistor.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-FinFETs-
gone from the planar structure to and-will-they-ever-be-able-to-replace-
MOSFETS
three-dimensional (3D) structures
to effectively reduce the footprint of devices. The 3D device is called
Finfet (fin field effect transistors). Fig. 5-1 shows the comparison between
a traditional planar field effect transistor (left) and the 3D Finfet structure
(right). In a Finfet transistor, the conducting channels are on three sides of
a fin structure with a much better control of the conduction current.

26
5-2. Gate all around technology
Finfet transistors have been implemented in 7 nm, 5 nm, and 3 nm
technology nodes. For 2 nm technology node, a more complicated
structure called GAA (gate all around) structure has been used (Fig. 5-2).
GAA transistors are field-effect transistors (FET) that feature a gate on all
four sides of the channel to
overcome the physical
scaling and performance
limitations of Finfets. In
Fig. 5-2. Left, a Finfet structure. Right: A GAA (gate
this structure, the vertical all around) structure.
https://www.utmel.com/blog/categories/transistors/intr
fin structure becomes oduction-to-finfet.

horizontal sheets. Needless to say, the fabrication of this structure is much

more complicated compared to that of a Finfet transistor. However, this is
still a Si device and is achievable.

27
Chapter 6. Beyond Si technology
6-1. Future possibilities. The
Si device cannot shrink
indefinitely. The diameter of a
Si atom is about 0.3 nm. One
cannot produce a Si device
with a channel less than the Si
https://hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/c
atomic size. The question everyone gmjzm3c/release/3

Fig. 6-1. Beyond Si technology.

is asking: are there any promising
strategies beyond the current Si technology? There have been several
ideas floating around and are shown in Fig. 6-1. The current Si chips are
based on von Neumann architecture. In this scheme, the logic chip and
memory chip are separate, and the instructions are fetched from memory
one at a time serially. There are non-von Neumann architectures.
Neuromorphic computing is one of them. Neuromorphic computing is
inspired by the human brain where processing and memory are governed
by the neurons and the synapses. Both neurons and synapses have logic
functions, but synapses only have memory functions. In a neuromorphic
computer, logic and memory are not separate chips. They are integrated
together. Therefore, the instructions are not serial. They are massively

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parallel. The fabrication of logic and memory devices together in a chip
poses a serious challenge.

More Recently there are also proposals involving two-dimensional

materials either “on Si” or “with Si” technologies (DOI: 10.1038/s41563-
022-01383-2). However, it is not clear whether these technologies
necessarily give smaller device dimension and higher IC density.

In the molecular transistors (beyond CMOS) shown in Fig. 6-1, transistors

are made from single molecules. These transistors may not be small
compared to advanced Si transistors, but the power consumption can be
low. Instead of controlling the current in the conduction channel in a
conventional transistor, one can control the on-off switch using a single
electron. One of the challenges is reliability. Single molecular transistors
are very sensitive to the environment such as temperature.

6-2. Quantum computing

The ultimate technology shown in Fig. 6-1 is quantum computer. Two
fundamental concepts based on quantum physics are applied, namely,
“superposition” and “entanglement”. Instead of binary on-off switches,
one uses “quantum bit”, or “qubit” as a unit. In quantum physics, the state

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of a system can be in a superposition of some sub-states. Fig. 6-2 shows
a schematic of a qubit. Consider a two-state quantum system. An arbitrary
state   can be written as a superposition of two basic states |0> and |1>
states, |𝜓 >= 𝛼 |0 > +𝛽|1 > where 𝛼 and 𝛽 are arbitrary complex

numbers satisfying (𝛼 )2 + (𝛽)2 = 1. The system is in both |0> and |1>

states with the probability of (𝛼 )2 and (𝛽)2 , respectively. Note that this
is different compared to classical computing where the system is either in
|0> or |1> state but cannot be both. In quantum physics the system can be
in “both” states with appropriate probabilities.

For example, one can have a superposition state in the form of

1 1
|𝜓 > = |0 > + 𝛽|1 > with equal
√2 √2
probability in the |0> and |1> states. If a
measurement is made on the system and
found that it is in the |0> state. The
system is then collapsed into the |0> state.
If a second measurement is made right
after the first one, then the system will be
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit
in the |0> state. But before any
Fig. 6-2. Quantum states in a qubit.
measurement, the system is in both

30
states.
Now if there is a second qubit that is coupled to the first qubit. The two
systems are “entangled”. There will be all together four possible
arrangements for the two entangled systems: |00 >, |01 >, |10 , and
|11 >. Here the first number in the | > refers to the first qubit and the
second number refers to the second qubit. It turns out that if there are N
qubit systems, there will be 2𝑁 possible arrangements or bits.

Remember that in classical computers, there are only two states, either |0>
or |1> state. If there are two such systems, there will be only two bits of
information one can record. In a quantum computer, two qubits can give
four bits of information and N qubits can give 2𝑁 bits of information.

6-3. Quantum physics

Quantum physics was my favorite subject. I had been teaching quantum
physics course for many years. Each year I had over 100 students in the
class. Fig. 6-3 shows the quantum physics class that I was lecturing. The
subject was so fascinating, intriguing, and weird. The concepts were so
different compared to what we learned from classical mechanics and
electromagnetism. We cannot understand quantum physics based on

31
intuition and common sense.

We already learned that solid

state transistors are based on
quantum physics. Other
applications include solid
state lighting, nuclear magnetic
imaging, electron microscopy,
etc. Fig. 6-3. Dr. Toh-Ming Lu lecturing in his
quantum physics class, 2019.

Chapter 7. Conclusion remarks

7-1. Quantum communication
However, to date, we have not fully utilized all the quantum physics
concepts in practical applications yet. In particular, the concept of
entanglement. This is where all the excitement comes from. In addition to
quantum computing, quantum communication based on entanglement is
an area that receives lots of attention due to its cryptography capability.
Also, two entangled systems can communicate instantaneously
(teleportation) regardless of how far they are away from each other. This

32
does not violate Einstein’s law that nothing can travel faster than light.
Here, there is no energy exchange during the communication between two
entangled systems. It is purely a quantum mechanical phenomenon. It
does look “weird” and “spooky”. But it is true!

7-2. Export control

Due to the current export control restrictions, we do not have many
Chinese students applying for PhD degrees in our department anymore.
As I discussed in Chapter 4, producing talented Chinese students has been
a win-win situation for the US and China. As a researcher, I just want to
do research with talented students, independent of their nationality. I do
hope that the tension between nations will ease soon.

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