Technology to extend the horizon of wide-bandgap semiconductor gallium nitride electronics
https://hkust.edu.hk/news/research-and-innovation/hkust-researchers-develop-technology-extend-horizon-wide-bandgap
"based on a GaN p-channel FET technology... Using a new oxygen plasma treatment technique... were able to simultaneously attain p-FET characteristics desirable for CMOS technology, including an enhancement-mode operation, low gate leakage, decent current density, and a high ON/OFF current ratio.... could have important implications for the development of new types of electronics"
See also: Researchers realize gallium nitride-based complementary logic integrated circuits
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-09-gallium-nitride-based-complementary-logic-circuits.html
Simon Derricutt commented via Disqus:
Looks like they've solved the problem of getting good P-type FETs in GaN. In some ways this sort of advance ought to be expected, since it's likely a lot of people have been experimenting with this. Though the manufacture looks like needing more mask steps than standard CMOS, and the scale of the university kit won't allow small enough features and thus achieve the maximum possible speed that the industrial 5nm or less fabs can do, it does look like this process could easily be used industrially and be able to produce some seriously fast microprocessors. Yep, despite the end of Moore's Law being predicted for a few decades now, looks like those predictions will still be wrong and computers will continue to get faster, bigger, and cheaper. In this case, they'll probably also not need as much power, too, so one of the big problems of large chips (removing the heat generated) will be easier to achieve.
Hong Kong has been somewhat of a hotbed of semiconductor design for a long time, and I wonder if the current clampdown on freedoms there will affect that excellence. Such a change won't happen instantly, but it should be pretty obvious that in an environment where any challenge to what the leaders think is met with hostility then the inventiveness will decay somewhat - semiconductors development is always challenging the status quo and thus it's likely to be impeded by an authoritarian system. There's also the question of free exchange of ideas, where if you allow it then everyone gains, but if it's impeded or stopped then research advances more slowly or can be totally stopped. Politics does have an effect on what happens.
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