NANOSIL kick-off meeting

NANOSIL is the name of a new European Commission-funded Network of Excellence devoted to the research in nanodevices, mostly based on Silicon. NANOSIL is the continuation of a previous Network of Excellence called SINANO (2004-2007).

NANOSIL started on January 1 2008 and will have a duration of three years. The kick-off meeting took place in Grenoble (France) on January 29 2008.

NANOSIL aims to integrate the excellent European research laboratories and capabilities at the European level in order to strengthen scientific and technological excellence in the field of nanoelectronic materials and devices for terascale integrated circuits. It will explore and assess all scientific and technological aspects of nanodevices (mostly based on Silicon) and operational regimes relevant to the 22nm technology node and beyond. Therefore, NANOSIL will provide a forward-look for the industry, enabling informed decisions to be taken on technology development to speed up technological innovation.

There are seven Flagship Projects in the areas of nanoscale CMOS (workpackage WP1) and post-CMOS (workpackage WP2), known as the “More Moore” and “Beyond-CMOS” domains. This work will be carried out through a network of joint processing, characterisation and modelling platforms. Alongside these technological Flagship Projects each workpackage also has a Visionary Project that will act as a forum to explore novel ideas bewteen academia and European industry.

The Flagship Projects will be "New Channel Materials" (including Strained SOI and GeOI devices), "Very Low Schottky Barrier MOSFETs", "Identification and appraisal of gate stack materials for the end of CMOS era", "Nanowires" (Silicon nanowires), "Carbon Electronics" (with emphasis on graphene devices), "Small slope nanoelectronic switch for low power integrated circuits”, and "Templated Self-Organization".

The Coordinator of NANOSIL will be Prof. Francis Balestra (INPG-MINATEC, Grenoble). A total 0f 28 European groups, including mine (URV, Spain), participate in NANOSIL.

Compact modeling is one of the activities in the Flagship Projects. My group will be mostly involved in that task. We plan to develop compact models of the novel devices addressed by NANOSIL.

Besides, NANOSIL will organize workshops and a modeling summer school.