Transistor scaling has been the driving force for technology advancements in the semiconductor industry over the

last few decades. In order to moderate short channel effects, the gate-oxide thickness and source/drain junction depth have been scaled along with the gate length. Recently, however, gate-oxide thickness scaling has slowed, as evidenced by the fact that an equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) of ~1 nm has been used for the past 2-3 generations of CMOS technology. Although significant progress has been made in the development of highpermittivity (high-) gate-dielectric materials and metal gate technology in recent years, it will be difficult to scale EOT well below 1 nm. This makes junction-depth scaling even more pressing for continued transistor scaling. Furthermore, as the dimensions of MOSFETs are scaled down, the contact resistance of silicide-to-source/drain regions increasingly limits transistor performance. This is because the on-state resistance of a MOSFET drops with transistor scaling, whereas contact resistance increases with contact area scaling. Contact resistance increases exponentially with Schottky barrier height (SBH) of the silicide-to-semiconductor contact. Thus, lower values of SBH will be needed in order to achieve substantial performance improvements with transistor scaling in the future Advantages Extremely small and lightweight, making them excellent replacements for metallic wires. Resources required to produce carbon nanotubes are plentiful, and many can be made with only a small amount of material. Are resistant to temperature changes, meaning they function almost just as well in extreme cold as they do in extreme heat. Have been in the R&D phase for a long time now, meaning most of the kinks have been worked out. As a new technology, investors have been piling into these R&D companies, which will boost the economy.

Also used in Bio-medical Applications, Textile industry, energy storage (solar cells of 70% efficiency )and electronic devices such as I-Pods etc.

Limitations 1. Manufacture: Important parameters are hard to control. 2. Large quantity fabrication process still missing. 3. Manipulation of nanotubes.

1.3 CNTFETs for analog and digital circuits

For the analog design, when dealing with a carbon nanotube technology, the main is the sizing of the transistors in order to achieve the desired electrical characteristics. When working with a traditional CMOS technology, the designer of analog integrated circuits in general has the following free variables: W (gate channel width) and L (gate channel length). However, for the CNTFET technology, the diameter of a nanotube is fixed and the channel length is variable. In order to achieve higher currents, it is possible to associate several nanotubes in parallel (N). So, the free variables are L and N. In a CMOS transistor the W can be varied continuously, limited by the resolution of the manufacturing lithography. In the CNTFET technology, the channel width is given by the number of carbon nanotubes that connect the source and drain regions in parallel. Thus, W can be sized only in discrete steps and is given by W=N.D, dependent on the number of nanotubes that form the transistor. So many analog circuits are designed with CNTFET such as differential amplifier and band pass, band reject, high pass and low pass filters.

1.4 Fabrication process and challenges in bulk production of CNTFET

The carbon arc-discharge method is a high temperature process that can be used for the production of nanotubes as well as fullerenes. The mass production of fullerenes was first achieved using arc discharge with the KratschmerHuffman method. The derived product and the yields are mainly dependent on the atmosphere and catalysts utilized. This method is probably one of the simplest methods for synthesizing nanotubes on a large scale. Challenges: The main challenge is the purification of the nanotube material obtained from the different processes. Depending on the synthesis method employed, the yield of undesirable byproducts in the soot varies and these impurities interfere with the properties of the nanotubes..