ABSTRACT
The ever-increasing demand for faster, smaller, and more advanced devices necessitates constant innovation from the micro- and nano-electronics industries. This chapter presents an overview of current and upcoming device structures that enable the continuation of device scaling. It provides a brief overview of the state-of-the-art and next-generation semiconductor logic devices. This paves the way for understanding the challenges involved in designing these devices and how atomic-scale processing techniques can be used to address those challenges. Gate-all-around nanosheet transistors are now considered to be the most suitable and feasible alternative structures for ongoing rapid scaling even below 7 nm technology nodes. Channel strain engineering continues to play a prominent role for future CMOS technology; however, to keep the same level of channel strain by embedded S/D SiGe is challenging as transistor dimension shrinks. This is because the volume of the stressor reduces as the transistor dimension shrinks.
