ABSTRACT
The silicon metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) has emerged as the ubiquitous active element for silicon very large scale integration integrated circuits. This chapter briefly examines metal oxide semiconductor device characteristics and elucidates important future issues which semiconductor technologists face as they attempt to continue the rate of progress to the identified terminus of the technology shrink path in about 2020. As large-scale integration of a devices developed in the 1960s, the MOSFET became the preferred device type and has eventually grown to dominate the use of semiconductor devices in integrated circuits. The chapter presents some of the major challenges faced by the semiconductor industry in achieving the dimensional and performance scaling of a complementary metal oxide semiconductor devices. To achieve the ultimate limits of semiconductor devices the general trends in manufacturing must certainly be toward ever thinner dimensions in all vertical as well as all horizontal dimensions.
