Technology Options Beyond Silicon CMOS

Designers of silicon-based microelectronics have begun searching for the next big technology to replace silicon complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuitry. A number of potential alternatives are being explored, but so far none have been found to be suitable replacements. This paper proposes a diamond-based metal-insulator-field effect transistor (MISFET) on silicon substrate as a solution. It introduces a processing method based on the direct writing of diamond in nano-dimension (less than 100 nm) and on the heterogenous integration of diamond and silicon substrates.