Silicon is being blended with other elements to make more powerful semiconductors, writes KARLIN LILLINGTON

TALK ABOUT semiconductors, and most people think of computers – or more precisely, the tiny silicon-chip brains within them.

But chips, and the things they are used for, are changing beyond recognition. For one, the “silicon chip” is turning into something else, as other ingredients gradually replace silicon (Germanium Valley, anyone?). And the products they go into are not those that ever cross the mind when you think chips: how about LED lighting, solar power arrays, cars or neuro-implants?

These latest developments were discussed recently by industry experts at the Industry Strategy Symposium Europe conference hosted at Intel Ireland, giving a surprising view of the future of silicon and semiconductors.

The odd new elements appearing in chips have arrived as part of an attempt to keep re-engineering the microchip without hitting the size and productivity limits of Moore’s famous law. Remember? It maintains that the quantity of transistors that can be placed cheaply on an integrated circuit has more or less doubled every two years.

“Moore’s law could be extended indefinitely” with new chip architectures and technologies, according to Paolo Gargini, group director, technology and manufacturing, at Intel. He noted that chips aren’t all about silicon anymore, but are moving towards blends of things like silicon and germanium – germanium now makes up 40 per cent of some chips.

Out at the cutting edge, chipmakers are also experimenting with compound semiconductors using silicon and blends of what they call III-V (three-five) elements – elements from group III (boron, aluminium, gallium, indium) and group V (nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, bismuth) on the periodic table. How about gallium nitride or indium arsenide chips?

The industry refers to the merging of silicon with the new III-V technologies as “more than Moore” technologies, as opposed to research into ways of getting more productivity out of silicon, which is referred to as “more Moore”.

Gargini said chips made from such materials demand 10 times less power, a key attraction. The technologies – which still offer several practical challenges that need to be overcome – should be ready by the end of the decade. The industry considers itself to be in a transitional period between the old silicon technologies and new compounds that will enable new applications, these experts say.

“But whatever additional functionality you are adding to the chip, you must also be able to integrate it energy-efficiently,” said Rudi Cartuyvels, general manager of process technology at IMEC.

Increasing energy-efficiency means new-generation chips have many applications within the green energy sector, many of which were highlighted by Andre-Jacques Auberton-Herve, chief executive of Soitec.

He outlined the energy and costs issues he thinks the semiconductor industry can help address. Take electricity demand – electricity consumption is due to grow by 250 per cent by 2030.

Currently, we waste much of the energy we use. For example, he said, inefficient data centres waste 80 per cent of their power generating unwanted, unused heat. Energy-hog data centres alone consume 1.2 per cent of the world’s electricity output. But new era semiconductors could vastly reduce energy consumption and lower heat generation (which in turn currently requires air conditioning to keep servers from overheating).

“Semiconductor materials are at the heart of electronic efficiency,” he noted. “For a 20 per cent power reduction, the cumulative net savings over the next 20 years would exceed $1.2 trillion .”

He also said there are huge opportunities in the area of new-generation LED lighting. He believes 70 per cent of the energy consumed to create incandescent light can be saved through semiconductor technologies.

“LED-based lighting is a semiconductor market,” he said. It’s also a market that is close to taking off, with this year considered to be a potential tipping point. Some 60 per cent of artificial lighting in Europe is inefficient, he says. LEDs could bring savings of 50 per cent on indoor lighting, and an even larger 70-80 per cent on outdoor lighting, he claimed.

Electric cars and solar energy are also up-and-coming semiconductor markets.

With new chip technologies, hybrid cars can operate at high voltages without losing too much energy, Auberton-Herve said. This too is a chip market waiting to take off – there are 500 million cars on the road now, but there will be three trillion by 2050, many of them electric and using semiconductors, he said.

Cartuyvels noted that semiconductors are also being used in sensor devices on cars, for example, a camera mounted on a car to analyse moving objects andhelp prevent accidents.

Solar energy is also a user of semiconductors, with chips a main component of photovoltaic cells. Auberton-Herve said that “More than Moore” III-V technologies can solve a major problem for the solar industry – unlike silicon, they are capable of capturing all light wavelengths in cells, making the cells more energy-efficient and productive.

On the other hand, challenges remain. As Auberton-Herve acknowledged, the world has limited amounts of indium and gallium, the III-V elements needed for these new semiconductors, “so our use needs to be efficient”.

On the medical and biotech side, Cartuyvels sees many needs for semiconductors, such as for body area networks (sensor devices inside and outside the body, used for personal healthcare). His own company is working with the Centre for Neuro-Electronic Research (NERF) in Flanders.

“It’s an interdisciplinary research centre for the integration of neuroscience, bioengineering and nano electronics,” he said. A current project involves neuro-probes: brain-implant semiconductors attached to tiny needles that can extract electrons from the brain. The chips are essentially “listening and talking to neurons”, he said, giving researchers new insights into how the brain functions and promising new embedded devices and treatments for patients in the future.

Cartuyvels said tomorrow’s chipmakers will need to be very different people, with different skills to what has been seen in the past.

The creation of these “more than Moore” technologies “will be an art, not just a science. Designers and technologists didn’t have to talk to each other for many years. But we have to make sure that future engineers are trained to excel in these arts.”

He also believes every engineer should also follow a course in sociology. Tomorrow’s engineers will face socio-economic challenges and will be “people driven by a societal vision”.