Ring around the nanowire [News]

Researchers are perfecting ways to produce gate-all-around devices. THE END OF Moore's Law has been predicted again and again. And again and again, new technologies, most recently FinFETs, have dispelled these fears. Engineers may already have come up with the technology that will fend off the next set of naysayers: nanowire FETs (field-effect transistors). In these nanodevices, current flows through the nanowire or is pinched off under the control of the voltage on the gate electrode, which surrounds the nanowire. Hence, nanowire FETs' other name: "gate-all-around" transistors. However, because of their small size, single nanowires can't carry enough current to make an efficient transistor.