Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2011
Within the last five years considerable research has focused on techniques to create “device-worthy” crystalline silicon films on insulators. Though several applications for such techniques have been proposed, none is more exciting than the prospect of “3-D Integration”, which has come to mean any IC technology that would yield more than one plane of active devices. This paper reviews the progress to date in this field by critically examining the merits and dismerits of the several silicon film preparation techniques, the several proposed 3-D device structures, and some possible applications of 3-D integration in electronic systems.