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Two-dimensional semiconductor integrated circuits operating at gigahertz frequencies

Nature Electronics volume 6, pages 879–887 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides could potentially be used to create transistors that are scaled beyond the capabilities of silicon devices. However, despite progress on the single-transistor level, the development of high-frequency integrated circuits remains a challenge and the operating frequency of integrated circuits based on transition metal dichalcogenides has so far been limited to the megahertz regime; this is well below the silicon complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor technology, as well as emerging technologies such as carbon nanotubes. Here we report two-dimensional semiconductor integrated circuits—five-stage ring oscillators—that operate in the gigahertz regime (up to 2.65 GHz) and are developed using a design-technology co-optimization process. The circuits are based on monolayer molybdenum disulfide field-effect transistors that have an air-gap structure, which leads to doping-free ohmic contacts and low parasitic capacitance. Technology computer-aided design simulations also suggest that our air-gap structure can potentially be scaled to the 1 nm technology node and could reach the targets set out in the IEEE International Roadmap for Devices and Systems for 2031.

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Fig. 1: MoS2 FET with an air-gap structure.
Fig. 2: TCAD simulation of the air-gap MoS2 device.
Fig. 3: D-/E-mode MoS2 FETs and inverter.
Fig. 4: Performance of MoS2 RO.
Fig. 5: Benchmarking with different MoS2 device structures at the scaled node.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (grant nos. 2022YFB4400100, 2021YFA0715600, 2021YFA1202903, 2022YFA1402504 and 2023YFF1500500); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. T2221003, T2322014, 61927808, 62204113, 62204124, 62304101, 62322408 and 61861166001); the National Natural Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars (Overseas); the Leading-Edge Technology Program of Jiangsu Natural Science Foundation (grant no. BK20202005); the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant nos. 2022M711549 and 2022T15036); Jiangsu Funding Program for Excellent Postdoctoral Talent (grant no. 20220ZB63); the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (grant no. BK20220773); Jiangsu Province Key R&D Program (grant no. BE2023009-3); the Excellent Youth Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (grant no. BK20200060); the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. XDB30000000); the Key Laboratory of Advanced Photonic and Electronic Materials, Collaborative Innovation Center of Solid-State Lighting and Energy-Saving Electronics; and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China. X.W. acknowledges the support by the New Cornerstone Science Foundation through the XPLORER PRIZE. W. L. acknowledges the support from Xiaomi foundation. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Dongxu Fan, Weisheng Li, Hao Qiu.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, School of Electronic Science and Engineering and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Dongxu Fan, Weisheng Li, Hao Qiu, Yifei Xu, Lei Liu, Taotao Li, Yun Mao, Wenbin Zhou, Wanqing Meng, Mengxin Liu, Xuecou Tu, Zhihao Yu, Yi Shi & Xinran Wang

  2. College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Si Gao & Futao Huang

  3. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China

    Si Gao

  4. Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Peng Wang

  5. School of Integrated Circuits, Nanjing University, Suzhou, China

    Xinran Wang

  6. Suzhou Laboratory, Suzhou, China

    Xinran Wang

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Contributions

X.W. conceived and supervised the project with H.Q., D.F., W.L., Y.X., Y.S., M.L. and X.T. contributed to the transistor fabrication, measurements and data analysis. S.G., F.H. and P.W. performed the transmission electron microscopy and data analysis. L.L. and T.L. performed the CVD growth of MoS2. H.Q., D.F., and X.W. co-wrote the manuscript with input from other authors. All authors contributed to discussions.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Hao Qiu or Xinran Wang.

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The authors declare the following competing interest: China patent application no. 2023101731215.

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Nature Electronics thanks Jiadi Zhu, Zhiyong Zhang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Fan, D., Li, W., Qiu, H. et al. Two-dimensional semiconductor integrated circuits operating at gigahertz frequencies. Nat Electron 6, 879–887 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-023-01052-5

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