According to Bernie Meyerson, IBM’s chief technology officer, the traditional scaling
of semiconductor manufacturing processes died somewhere between the 130-
and 90-nanometer nodes. One of the prime reasons is the low dielectric constant of
SiO2 —the choice dielectric of all modern electronics. This book presents materials
fundamentals of the novel gate dielectrics that are being introduced into semiconductor
manufacturing to ensure the Moore’s law scaling of CMOS devices. This is a
very rapidly evolving field of research and we try to focus on the basic understanding
of structure, thermodynamics, and electronic properties of these materials that
determine their performance in the device applications.
The volume was conceived in 2001 after a Symposium on Alternative Gate Dielectrics
we had at the American Physical Society March Meeting in Seattle, upon
the suggestion of the Kluwer editor Sabine Freisem. After several discussions we
decided that such a book indeed would be useful as long as we could focus on the
fundamental side of the problem and keep the level of the discussion accessible to
graduate students and a variety of professionals from different fields. The problem
of finding a replacement for SiO2 as a gate dielectric brings together in a unique way
many fundamental disciplines. At the same time this problem is truly applied and
practical. It looked unlikely that the perfect new material would be found fast; rather
there would be a series of evolving candidate materials and approaches. Thus we felt
we could alert the next generation of scientist to an exciting problem they would have
a chance to participate in solving. The book would be of interest to those actively
engaged in gate dielectric research, and microelectronics in general, and to graduate
students in Materials Science, Physics, Chemistry, and Electrical Engineering.