Electronics miniaturization issues

In the early 1990s, with the popularity of and easy access to personal computers and the Internet, a paradigm shift occurred in the thermal management of electronics. The issue was speed. Mass access to electronics and higher consumer expectations for speed and miniaturization forced many companies to provide higher speed systems and services. Speed requirements necessitated... 

With the onset of the computer age and the increasing trend toward miniaturization of electrical and electronic devices, power quality problems have taken on increasing importance. The designers of computers and microprocess controllers are not versed in power system power quality issues. By the same token, power system designers and operators have limited knowledge of the operation of sensitive electronics. This environment has led to a need for power quality standards and guidelines. Currently,... 

From this comparison it can be concluded that on the device level there are fundamental limits for the miniaturization of hybrid-molecular electronics, which are not only governed by the size of the molecule but also depend on the size that an electromechanical or capacitative grid has to have in order to influence its energy levels. These architectural issues regarding the interfacing of a molecular device to the outside world or the assembly of many devices into larger circuits will have to be addressed to a larger extent in the near future. 

Once the CMOS metal-oxide sensor chip is available, the miniaturization of the device brings different issues to the CMOS electronics design. We refer the reader to the comprehensive review published by Gardner et al. (2010), for more information about electronics circuitry design. 

In order to get die discussion of specific problems under way, I returned to an issue that was discussed after one of the morning lectures given that in our drive towards miniaturization we may eventually be able to build nanoscopic devices in which individual molecules perform functions that are currendy performed by the elements of microelectronic or optoelectronic circuits or additional functions that we are presendy not able to perform, how shall we address the individual molecules and connect them to the outside world At times, this has been declared inqxissible, and much criticism has been leveled at the whole so far non-existent field of molecular electronics as a result. 

In the opposite direction, the constant miniaturization of electronic components, driven by Moore s law, necessitated that both lateral sizes and different layer thicknesses in electronic components be decreased. This soon became a driving force for the investigation of the lower limit of film thicknesses, which could be deposited using sol-gel precursors by, for instance, spin coating, dip coating, spray coating, and so on. In early literature, several issues were identified such as microstructural instability and the so-called dead layer effects, which inhibited any functional properties to be observed below a critical film thickness. 

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