金刚石半导体

更高性能的金刚石半导体技术

 

金刚石具有比硅速度快、功耗小、质量轻、厚度薄等诸多优点，在半导体领域具有巨大前景。

早在2000年之前，阿贡国家实验室已经就金刚石化学气相淀积（CVD）展开试验，并成立了先进金刚石技术公司。该公司和创新微技术公司合作制造出金刚石微机电系统，并促进了SP3金刚石技术等金刚石晶圆专业公司生产用于淀积金刚石晶体的CVD设备。虽然截止目前，金刚石最大的应用还是在珠宝、研磨料和人造钻石等领域，但阿贡国家实验室仍努力寻求可使金刚石（自然的绝缘体）变为半导体和导体的方法，以此为所有的金刚石芯片铺平道路。美国初创公司Akhan半导体公司已获美国能源部阿贡国家实验室的金刚石半导体工艺授权，再结合自身在金刚石领域的技术突破，计划成为首个真正实现金刚石半导体产品化的公司。

金刚石半导体实现商业化的最大问题是制造P型晶体管容易、制造n型晶体管困难，Akhan半导体公司的创始人兼首席执行官Adam Kahn提供了“Miraj金刚石平台”作为解决方案，可实现P型和N型器件，使得制造出金刚石互补金属氧化物半导体(CMOS)成为可能。该工艺平台的技术核心是，通过在P型器件中掺杂磷、在N型器件中掺杂了钡与锂，带来P型和N型性能相当的可调电子器件，并因此发展出金刚石CMOS。

采用CMOS金刚石半导体工艺制造出的首个器件是金刚石PIN二极管，厚度打破记录地薄至500纳米，性能比硅高100万倍，还比硅薄100倍，原因在于金刚石的带隙比碳化硅和氮化镓还要宽；在热分析结果显示，该PIN二极管中没有热点，因此没有硅PIN二极管中的寄生损失。

Akhan半导体公司还展示了100GHz器件。金刚石具有超低阻值，减少散热需求，还可淀积在硅、玻璃、蓝宝石和金属衬底上，有望重新激发微处理器运算速度的演进。此前，由于无法有效散热，微处理器的运算速度在5GHz左右已徘徊了10年。对于硅材料，5GHz是一个极限，因为更高的功耗和热点会将微处理器化为泡沫，而金刚石有着22倍于硅、5倍于铜的热传导能力，将使微处理器的运算速度达到新的高度，催生新一代微处理器。金刚石技术还将使摩尔定律得到延续。Akhan半导体公司展示的100GHz芯片使用的特征尺寸是100s纳米，在金刚石面临单原子级之前还有十二代可缩小空间，而硅则将在2025年达到原子级发展极限。

Akhan公司的产品将是未来智能手机、智能手表、笔记本或虚拟现实眼镜的核心部件。Akhan的产品不仅能够提升设备的性能，还能增加设备的寿命。为什么？答案很简单：钻石。更确切地说是：合成钻石。

钻石不单是莫氏硬度表上最坚硬的材料，也有着有良好的导热性。与硅相比，钻石保持能量的能力更强。对于智能手机来说，钻石制造的处理器能够减少发热量。

智能手机不是唯一的受益者，对于想要缩小设备中电路体积的公司来说，钻石处理器都能带来帮助。另外，重工业和航空航天业也需要钻石处理器件来抵御高强度的辐射和X射线。

本月15日AKHAN半导体公司发布了涉及制造金刚石半导体材料的日本专利。基于金刚石技术能够提高功率密度，并为消费者创造更快，更轻，更简单的设备。比硅芯片更便宜，更薄，基于金刚石的电子产品可能成为高能效电子产品的行业标准。

金刚石是自然界存在的特殊材料之一，具有最高的硬度、低摩擦系数、高弹性模量、高热导、高绝缘、宽能隙、高的声传播速率以及良好的化学稳定性等，如下表。虽然天然金刚石具有这些独一无二的特性，但是它们一直仅仅是以宝石的形式存在，其性质的多变性和稀有性极大地限制了其应用。而洛阳誉芯金刚石制备的CVD金刚石膜将这些优异的物理化学性能集一身，且成本较天然金刚石低，能够制备各种几何形状，在电子、光学、机械等工业领域有广泛的应用前景。

Higher Performance Semiconductor Technology——Diamond

Diamond has many advantages such as faster speed, lower power consumption, lighter weight and thinner thickness than silicon, which has a great prospect in the semiconductor field.

As early as 2000, Argonne National Laboratory have already started tests on chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond, and set up Advanced Diamond Technology company. The company has partnered with Innovative Micro Technology to create a diamond MEMS and to promote the CVD equipment used by diamond wafer specialty companies such as SP3 Diamond Technology to deposit diamond crystals. Although the biggest applications for diamonds so far have been in the areas of jewelery, abrasives and artificial diamonds, Argonne National is still struggling to find ways to make diamonds (natural insulators) into semiconductors and conductors, Diamond chips pave the way. Akhan Semiconductor, a US startup, has been licensed by the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory for Diamond Semiconductor Process technology and is planning to be the first to truly bring its semiconductor products to market, in conjunction with its technological breakthrough in the diamond area.

The biggest problem with commercializing the diamond semiconductor is making P-type transistors easily and making n-type transistors difficultly. Adam Kahn, founder and CEO of Akhan Semiconductor, offers the "Miraj Diamond Platform" as a solution that makes P-type and N-type Type device possible to manufacture a diamond complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS). The technological core of the process platform is that by doping phosphorus in a P-type device, it is doped with barium and lithium in the N-type device, resulting in tunable electronic devices with comparable P-type and N-type performance, and thus the result is diamonds CMOS.

Akhan Semiconductor's first device manufactured using a CMOS-based diamond semiconductor process is a diamond PIN diode with a thickness record-breaking of 500 nanometers, one million times better performance than silicon and 100 times thinner than silicon, due to the band gap ratio is even wider silicon carbide and gallium nitride; in thermal analysis, there is no hot spot in the PIN diode, so there is no parasitic loss in the silicon PIN diode.

Akhan Semiconductor also showed 100GHz devices. The ultra-low resistance of diamond to reduce thermal requirements, as well as deposition on silicon, glass, sapphire and metal substrates, is expected to revive the evolution of microprocessor operation. Previously, due to the inability to effectively dissipate heat, the computing speed of microprocessors has been hovering for 10 years at about 5 GHz. For silicon, 5GHz is a limit result from higher power consumption and hot spots turn microprocessors into bubbles, while diamonds have 22 times the thermal conductivity of silicon and 5 times the thermal conductivity of copper, Reach a new height, spawned a new generation of microprocessors. Diamond technology will also continue Moore's Law. The 100GHz chip exhibited by Akhan Semiconductor uses a feature size of 100s nanometers, with 12 generations before the diamond faces a single atomic level, while silicon will reach its atomic-growth limit by 2025.

Akhan company's products will be the future’ s core components of smart phones, smart watches, laptop or virtual reality glasses. Akhan's products not only improve the performance of the equipment, but also increase the life of the equipment. why? The answer is simple: diamonds. More precisely: synthetic diamonds.

 

Diamonds are not only the hardest material on the Mohs scale, but also with good thermal conductivity. Diamonds are more energy-conserving than silicon. For smartphones, diamond-based processors reduce the amount of heat generated.

Smartphones are not the only beneficiaries, and diamond processors can help those who want to reduce the size of their circuits in the device. In addition, heavy industry and the aerospace industry also require diamond-processing devices to withstand high levels of radiation and X-rays.

 

On November fifteenth, AKHAN Semiconductor announced that the issuance by the Japan Patent Office of a patent covering a method for the fabrication of diamond semiconductor materials, core to applications in automotive, aerospace, consumer electronics, military, defense, and telecommunications systems, amongst others.

 

Diamond, as one of the most special materials in natural world, is featured with the highest hardness, low friction coefficient, high elasticity modulus, high thermal conductivity, high insulation class, wide energy gap, great sound propagation rate and favorable chemical stability, which are presented in below Table. In spite of such unique features, the natural diamond has always been existed in the form of gem, with its variability and rareness sharply limiting its application. Luoyang Yuxin Diamond Co., Ltd’ s CVD Diamond film, on the other hand, integrates such physical and chemical properties, with lower cost than natural diamond and applicable to be made into various shapes, thus enjoying extensive application prospect in electronic industry, optical field and mechanical industry.

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