US Patent 8089152 - Graded permittivity dielectrics using nanostructures

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8089152.html

One of the ways to extend Moore's Law is to find new dielectrics with higher permittivity in place of the silicon dioxide used as the gate insulator of MOSFETs. This patent from Nanosys teaches an interesting technique to engineer dielectric material using nanostructures to provide a graded permittivity. Claim 1 reads:

1. A memory gate stack comprising a graded artificial dielectric, comprising:

(a) a dielectric material;

(b) a first region within the dielectric material with a plurality of nanostructures having one or more characteristics embedded therein; and

(c) a second region within the dielectric material with a plurality of nanostructures having one or more characteristics embedded therein;

wherein at least one of the one or more nanostructure characteristics is spatially varied from the first region to the second region, wherein the spatial variance is gradual and consistent from the first region to the second region.