LEUVEN, Belgium and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – December 12, 2012 – Imec, the Belgian nanoelectronics research center, and Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq:SNPS), a global leader accelerating innovation in the design, verification and manufacturing of chips and systems, today announced that they have expanded their collaboration in the field of Technology Computer Aided Design (TCAD) to next-generation FinFET technology at 10-nm. The collaboration builds on extensive work done at 14-nm and several other process geometries, and will calibrate Synopsys’ Sentaurus™ TCAD models to support the next-generation FinFET devices. The collaboration will include 3-D modeling of new device architectures and materials that will enable … Read More → "Imec and Synopsys Expand FinFET Collaboration to 10 Nanometer Geometry"

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Silicon’s crown is under threat: The semiconductor’s days as the king of microchips for computers and smart devices could be numbered, thanks to the development of the smallest transistor ever to be built from a rival material, indium gallium arsenide.

The compound transistor, built by a team in MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories, performs well despite being just 22 nanometers (billionths of a meter) in length. This makes it a promising candidate to eventually replace silicon in computing devices, says co-developer Jesús del Alamo, the Donner Professor of Science in … Read More → "Tiny compound semiconductor transistor could challenge silicon’s dominance"