Evolution of integrated electronics from microelectronics to nanoelectronics

Microelectronics is a semi-classical electronics from the viewpoint that the behavior of electrons in devices can be treated with the effective mass approximation and the random phase approximation. On the other hand nanoelectronics is a quantum-mechanical electronics with full use of properties of electron waves, of artificial mini-Brillouin zones, of size dependent energy eigenstate structures and of Coulomb blockade of electron tunneling. New circuit implementation techniques are to be explored in nanoelectronics.