Back to the roots: Germanium outperforms silicon in energy efficient transistors with n- und p- conduction

(Deutsche Version unten)

NaMLab and cfaed reached an important breakthrough in the development of energy-efficient electronic circuits using transistors based on germanium

Dresden, Germany, February 3, 2017
A team of scientists from the Nanoelectronic Materials Laboratory (NaMLab gGmbH) and the Cluster of Excellence Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) at the Dresden University of Technology have demonstrated the world-wide first transistor based on germanium that can be programmed between electron- (n) and hole- (p) conduction. Transistors based on germanium can be operated at low supply voltages and reduced power consumption, due to the low band gap compared to silicon. Additionally, the realized germanium based transistors can be reconfigured between electron and hole conduction based on the voltage applied to one of the gate electrodes. This enables to realize circuits with lower transistor count compared to state-of-the-art CMOS technologies.