Scientists explore new semiconductor materials with ultra-low dielectric constant and extremely high heat transfer performance

In recent years, the development direction of Moore's Law seems to have encountered some bottlenecks
.
According to previous expectations, the number of integrated circuit transistors is expected to double every once in a while
.
But the reality is that with the continuous evolution of the manufacturing process, thermal management has become an important challenge for chip breakthroughs
.
The good news is that researchers at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Northwestern University have just created a new type of polymer-based circuit insulation material, which is characterized by the ability to achieve higher power in a smaller space
.
COF-5 dielectric layer impedance measurement (picture from: Nature Materials) It is reported that this multidisciplinary research team led by Professor Patrick E.
Hopkins of the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering of the University of Virginia and Professor Will Dichtel of the Department of Chemistry of Northwestern University is inventing A new type of material that is expected to keep the chip from fever as the size continues to shrink
.
In an article published today in the journal Nature Materials, they grandly introduced an electrical insulating material that minimizes electrical crosstalk and has an ultra-low-k
.
The material can eliminate signal crosstalk by controlling the current, enabling electronic products to further break through the current performance limits
.
Ideally, it can also remove harmful heat caused by the current from the circuit
.
As the chip manufacturing process continues to shrink and the density of transistors continues to increase, the trouble caused by heat is also increasing exponentially
.
For this reason, Professor Patrick E.
Hopkins decided to find a new material with ultra-low dielectric constant
.
Although related fields have been explored for a long time before, unless through the brainstorming of mechanical engineering, chemistry, materials science, electrical engineering and other disciplines, this goal is still difficult to achieve alone
.
SCITechDaily pointed out that Professor Patrick E.
Hopkins is one of the leaders of the school’s multifunctional materials integration program, and has brought together researchers from multiple engineering disciplines to formulate this new material with excellent characteristics
.
The first research work, Ashutosh Giri, said that the chemistry team is aware of the thermal properties of materials, and then explores from more dimensions, while the mechanical and materials team can gain in-depth understanding from the molecular engineering level
.
Professor Will Dichtel added that they are building polymer sheets as thick as one atom (2D for short) and layering them in a specific architecture to control their performance
.
By improving the method of producing high-quality 2D polymer films, the research team is actively applying this new material to meet the miniaturization requirements for denser transistors on dense chips
.
Looking to the future, this technology is expected to play a huge potential in the semiconductor (chip manufacturing) industry because it not only has an ultra-low dielectric constant, but also has an ultra-high heat transfer performance
.