Self-Assembly for Semiconductor Industry

Fabrication technologies for the semiconductor industry have enabled ever-smaller devices but now face fundamental limits in creating nanoscale products. Self-assembly has recently emerged as a promising alternative fabrication technology for functional nanoscale systems. Such processes can be made parallel and are capable of producing three-dimensional structures with ~10 nm precision. This paper reviews developments, applications and challenges of self-assembly methods for the semiconductor industry. Although a fully self-assembled nanoscale system has not yet been commercially achieved, the work reviewed and discussed here demonstrates a solid scientific foundation in pursuing this goal.