What is one of the patents unique structures?
One of the most important structures is the Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor, or MOSFET. There are millions of these transistors in a modern IC, and the most critical part of each one is what is called the gate oxide. Great effort is usually expended to make this oxide extremely flat. However, this patent introduces the concept of a gate oxide with hundreds of regularly spaced small wrinkles, or undulations. A cross-section of such a device is shown in Figure 12 of the patent application and is repeated below. Now in a typical MOSFET, the smallest spacing between the source S and the drain D is about 2000 . One of the favored spacings for this invention is only 16.3 , as shown in Figure 5 from the patent after producing the nanometer width grooves. These ridges are then oxidized to form an undulating insulating film and fabricated into the special MOSFET of Figure 12 from the patent. The actual number of undulations between S and D is 123 in this particular case. In th
