The chip may welcome a revolutionary breakthrough! New smart transistors can perform different tasks. AI and other areas are expected to benefit.

Usually, a computer chip is made up of electronic components, and a component always does the same thing. In the future, however, greater flexibility will be possible: new adaptive transistors can be dynamically switched at runtime to perform different logic tasks. This fundamentally changes the possibility of chip design and opens up new opportunities for artificial intelligence, neural networks, and even logic fields that can handle more values than 0 and 1.

To achieve this, scientists at (TU Wien) at the Technical University of Vienna rely not on the usual silicon technology, but on germanium. They successfully used germanium to make the most flexible transistor in the world. The results were published in the scientific journal ACS Nano.

"the special properties of germanium and the use of special program gate electrodes make it possible for us to create a prototype of new components that may usher in a new era of chip technology," the researchers said. "

A transistor is the foundation of every modern electronic device: it is a tiny component that allows or stops the flow of current, depending on whether a voltage is applied to the control electrode. This makes it possible to establish simple logic circuits and storage. How the charge travels in the transistor depends on the material used. Either there is a free-moving electron with a negative charge, or an electron may be missing in an individual atom, so this place is positively charged. These are called "holes", and they can also move through the material.

In the new transistor at the University of Vienna, both electrons and holes are manipulated at the same time in a very special way: "We connect two electrodes with a very fine germanium wire and two electrodes through an extremely clean, high-quality interface. A gate electrode like a traditional transistor is placed above the germanium section. The transistor also has a control electrode, which is placed on the interface between germanium and metal. It can program the function of the transistor dynamically. "

According to the researchers, the device structure makes it possible to control electrons and holes respectively because germanium has a very special electronic structure: when you apply a voltage, the current increases initially, as you would expect. However, after a certain threshold, the current decreases again, which is called negative differential resistance. With the help of the control electrode, the researchers can adjust the voltage at which the threshold is. This leads to new degrees of freedom, which can be used to give transistors the characteristics they currently need.

For example, in this way, a non-gate can be switched to a non-gate. "so far, the intelligence of electronics has simply come from the interconnection of several transistors, each with only a fairly primitive function," the researchers said. In the future, this intelligence can be transferred to the adaptability of the new transistor itself. "

"in the past, the arithmetic operation of 160 transistors was needed, but due to the improvement of adaptability, 24 transistors can be realized. In this way, the speed and energy efficiency of the circuit can also be significantly improved. " They added.

These new possibilities are particularly interesting for applications in the field of artificial intelligence: "our human intelligence is based on circuits that change dynamically between nerve cells." With the new adaptive transistor, it is now possible to directly change the circuit on the chip. Multi-valued logic can also be implemented in this way, that is, the circuit works not only at 0 and 1, but also in a larger number of possible states. "

In addition, the rapid industrial application of this new technology is also realistic: the materials used are already used in today's semiconductor industry and do not require completely new manufacturing processes. In some ways, the technology will be even simpler than before: today, semiconductors are doped, that is, enriched by individual foreign atoms. This is not necessary for germanium-based transistors, which can use pure germanium.

"We don't want to completely replace the mature silicon transistor technology with our new transistor," the researchers said. "that would be self-righteous. In the future, this new technology is more likely to be integrated into computer chips as an add-on. In some applications, the use of adaptive transistors is more energy-efficient and more convenient. "