The Road for 2D Semiconductors in the Silicon Age

Abstract

Continued reduction in transistor size can improve the performance of silicon integrated circuits (ICs). However, as Moore's law approaches physical limits, high‐performance growth in silicon ICs becomes unsustainable, due to challenges of scaling, energy efficiency, and memory limitations. The ultrathin layers, diverse band structures, unique electronic properties, and silicon‐compatible processes of 2D materials create the potential to consistently drive advanced performance in ICs. Here, the potential of fusing 2D materials with silicon ICs to minimize the challenges in silicon ICs, and to create technologies beyond the von Neumann architecture, is presented, and the killer applications for 2D materials in logic and memory devices to ease scaling, energy efficiency bottlenecks, and memory dilemmas encountered in silicon ICs are discussed. The fusion of 2D materials allows the creation of all‐in‐one perception, memory, and computation technologies beyond the von Neumann architecture to enhance system efficiency and remove computing power bottlenecks. Progress on the 2D ICs demonstration is summarized, as well as the technical hurdles it faces in terms of wafer‐scale heterostructure growth, transfer, and compatible integration with silicon ICs. Finally, the promising pathways and obstacles to the technological advances in ICs due to the integration of 2D materials with silicon are presented.

Application of 2D Materials in Hardware Security for Internet‐of‐Things: Progress and Perspective

“…[41,42] In a nutshell, 2D material-based FETs demonstrated effective gate control, improved supply voltage scaling, low power consumption, area-efficient structure, and heterostructure integration, which are plausible features to develop new-generation computing technologies beyond the von Neumann architecture. [7,43] 2D materials are also promising in emerging memories, [8,44,45] for example, minimizing the vertical layer thickness to realize high-density and low-cost nonvolatile memory, preventing diffusion of atoms to enhance interface instability in ferroelectric memory, and suppressing capacitive coupling between memory cells of flash memory. [5] Furthermore, novel switching mechanisms are also observed in 2D materials, such as the filamentary migration of metallic ions along grain boundaries or defects of monolayer h-BN [46] and nonvolatile switching in monolayer MoS 2 , MoSe 2 , WS 2 , and WSe 2 based on phase transition or grain boundaries.…”

“…2D materials are also promising in emerging memories, [ 8,44,45 ] for example, minimizing the vertical layer thickness to realize high‐density and low‐cost nonvolatile memory, preventing diffusion of atoms to enhance interface instability in ferroelectric memory, and suppressing capacitive coupling between memory cells of flash memory. [ 5 ] Furthermore, novel switching mechanisms are also observed in 2D materials, such as the filamentary migration of metallic ions along grain boundaries or defects of monolayer h‐BN [ 46 ] and nonvolatile switching in monolayer MoS 2 , MoSe 2 , WS 2 , and WSe 2 based on phase transition or grain boundaries.…”

“…The broad library of 2D semiconductors features a dangling-bond-free surface, excellent electronic performance at subnanometer thickness, myriad properties of materials, and compatibility with new manufacturing techniques, [6] and hence 2D materials are promising to alleviate the challenges of integrated circuits and computing technologies based on silicon technology. [7,8,[12][13][14] In the application of hardware security, 2D materials exhibit tremendous variation ascribing to variation in different intrinsic and extrinsic parameters arising from random defects in the synthesis of materials, material transfer, and device fabrication, giving rise to much more complexed cycle-to-cycle (C2C) or device-to-device (D2D) variation than other materials as listed in Table S1, Supporting Information. [10,[15][16][17][18][19] Therefore, 2D material-based security devices can have multiple high-quality entropy sources without increasing energy consumption and hardware overhead to compensate for low randomness as in the case of silicon-based hardware security.…”

“…[ 7 ] Moreover, because of the inherent thickness of silicon, the current silicon transistor can only control the surface of the top channel restraining the area efficiency of silicon transistors and the power and efficiency of the silicon integrated circuits. [ 8,9 ] On the other hand, current silicon‐based security primitives are plagued with low entropy, high energy consumption, and exorbitant overhead. [ 3,10 ] For example, silicon‐based PUFs rely on variations in the physical characteristics of an integrated circuit and process variations in silicon CMOS fabrication.…”

Pentagonal 2D Transition Metal Dichalcogenides: PdSe2 and Beyond

“…The isolation of atomically thin single-crystalline graphene by mechanical cleavage in 2004 [1] ignited much interest in 2D materials. [2][3][4][5][6] Being only one monolayer thick, 2D materials exhibit unconventional properties including optical, [7][8][9][10] electrical, [11][12][13][14][15] chemical, [16][17][18][19] and magnetic properties. [20][21][22][23][24] 2D materials promise novel properties such as superconductivity, [25][26][27] magnetism, [28][29][30] as well as applications in electronics, [31][32][33] optics, [34][35][36] energy storage, [37][38][39] sensors, [40][41][42][43] and biomedicine.…”