Transistor footprint scaling is rapidly approaching its limits. But this is not about to slow the rapid progress of information processing technology. On the contrary, 3D integration involving new material systems and devices opens a new era with unprecedented promise.
Meeting future computing needs requires new materials and phenomena that can overcome barriers to current technologies that are approaching their fundamental limits. Today’s microelectronics use the electron’s charge to encode and manipulate information, but the electron’s spin degree of freedom is emerging as a source of untapped potential for low-power, high-performance computing.