In an article published in the journal advanced materials on February 10, 2022, researchers from Japan's National Institute of materials (NIMS) and Tokyo University of science introduced in detail their successfully developed new "organic anti bipolar" transistors** It is reported that this lightweight transistor can be used to develop "electrically reconfigurable" logic circuits by adjusting the input voltage of any of the five logic gates (and, or, NAND, nor, XOR).
Figure 1: device structure / optical micrograph
Sci tech daily pointed out that as the Internet of things (IOT) has entered tens of millions of homes, the data processing capacity of edge computing devices has also ushered in a surge.
This means that the chip industry needs more lightweight and high-performance mobile data processing equipment. Thanks to the ability to use a single transistor to build multiple logic circuits, we may develop high-performance mobile devices based on organic double reverse transistors in the future.
Research diagram - 2: bottom curve / top dependency / mapping function
Unfortunately, due to incompatibility with the existing micromachining technology, the density of such integrated circuits has been very low. In order to overcome this problem, the Japanese research team has developed an organic double gate anti bipolar transistor.
Through its unique design, it can reduce its drain current when the gate voltage exceeds a certain threshold, so as to realize the operation of dual input logic gate.
Figure 3: 2d-id mapping of dual input voltage function
When the voltage is applied to the top and bottom gates of the transistor, it will produce an output signal (i.e. drain current). When the input voltage is adjusted, the transistor will show the ability of five different types of dual input logic gates at room temperature.
Study diagram - 4: 2d-id mapping voltage of bottom curve / dual input function with different VD values
It is reported that the existing integrated circuit technology needs four transistors to form a "or non" (NAND) circuit. In addition, 12 transistors are required to form an XOR circuit. The novel organic anti bipolar transistor
Study diagram - 5: Purple / white area, which refers to the current above / below - 7.5 Na respectively.
Because of the fact that many bipolar logic circuits have such a dual gate, they can be regarded as a key to improve the density of organic logic. Even in the field of organic electronics, this in itself is a major challenge.
(portal: advanced materials)
Looking forward to the future, the research team of Japan's National Institute of materials and Tokyo University of science also plans to use this new transistor to develop electrically reconfigurable integrated circuits. However, we still have a long way to go before it is officially introduced to the market.