John Robertson
Biography
One of the true milestones in chip technology over the past 15 years was the replacement of SiO2 gate oxides in CMOS transistors with high-dielectric constant oxides like HfO2. John Robertson predicted that the conduction band offset of HfO2 would be 1.4 eV, which would significantly reduce gate leakage. The replacement of SiO2 with HfO2 is perhaps the largest change to the “heart” of the transistor. It greatly clarified materials selection and allowed industrial development to focus on HfO2. By establishing the basis of optimal material design from the viewpoint of electron transport in MOS gate-stack systems based on computational science, Robertson spearheaded the core structure of state-of-the-art MOSFETs.
An IEEE Fellow, Robertson is a professor in the Department of Engineering at Cambridge University, Cambridge, England.
