🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3810043@eecs.nwu.edu> naim@eecs.nwu.edu (Naim Abdullah) writes:
>Can anybody provide a ball park figure for a feature size that will cause
>quantum mechanical tunneling effects to cause a chip to malfunction ?
>
I recommend "Introduction to VLSI Systems", Mead & Conway, Addison-Wesley,
1980.  This old book is still a good way for people without a background
in semiconductors to at least get some appreciation of the issues.  In
chapter 1 Mead writes

	Finally, there appears to be a fundamental limit
	of approximately one-quarter micron channel length,
	where certain physical effects such a the tunneling
	through of the gate oxide...begin to make devices of
	smaller dimension unworkable.

Chapter nine has a more extensive discussion of the limits to scaling.
-- 
Jeff Berkowitz N6QOM			uunet!sequent!jjb
Sequent Computer Systems		Custom Systems Group