Challenges for post-CMOS devices & architectures

Since 2006, the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI) has been actively funding work at universities across the U.S. with one specific mission: Demonstrate novel computing devices capable of replacing the CMOS FET as a logic switch in the 2020 timeframe. These devices must show significant advantage over FETs in power, performance, density, and/or cost to enable the semiconductor industry to extend the historical cost and performance trends for information technology. NRI seeks to find not just a one generation improvement on the FET, but rather a new extended scaling path. This is crucial to justify the expense of making any major change in the current technology infrastructure (both at the device and design level) - and the larger the change, the more benefit and longevity the new technology must offer.