The future of chips: how gate-all-around design is powering the AI era and the next node (www.techradar.com)

The shift toward gate-all-around (GAA) chip design represents a pivotal advancement in semiconductor technology, as traditional scaling methods have hit their limits. GAA wraps the gate material around all sides of the channel, providing engineers with enhanced control over electrical flows, thus enabling better performance without increasing chip size. This is particularly significant in the AI era, where demands for speed, efficiency, and compactness in chips are intensifying. However, while GAA addresses certain challenges like power consumption, it creates new bottlenecks related to electrical resistance and doping variability. To mitigate these issues, chipmakers are exploring advanced materials that operate at the atomic level. These innovations focus on blocking unwanted dopant diffusion, smoothing surfaces to improve current flow, and reducing contact resistance at metal-silicon junctions. The integration of such advanced materials is critical for unlocking the full potential of GAA and driving further advancements in performance per area and energy efficiency. As the industry looks toward the future, with emerging structures like complementary FET (CFET) on the horizon, the need for transformative materials remains vital for sustaining progress beyond Moore's Law in an AI-driven landscape.