Guest Editors' Words

Semiconductor technology has known an exponential evolution during last decades, being the key for the further evolution of micro- and nanoelectronics and the commercial breakthrough of state-of-the-art innovative and sometimes disruptive applications. Microelectronics is fully integrated in different areas of everyday life, such as healthcare, automotive, communication, safety and security, smart energy, smart cities, retail business, etc. This evolution implies extensive research towards new materials (gate dielectrics, metallization, III-V materials, wide bandgap approaches, etc.), alternative device architectures (e.g., FinFETs, TFETs, negative capacitance, gate-all-around, nanowires, nanosheets in both horizontal or vertical configurations, SOI approaches) and optimized system functionality and density (3D integration, through silicon vias, sequential integration, SOC, and others). Besides advanced 2- and 3D transistors, also solar cells, bio-devices, organic devices are of great importance. Also the operation field of the devices, including frequency range, noise performance and temperature range, has to be optimized in function of the envisaged digital or analog application. The state-of-the-art, trends and challenges encountered during the fabrication and operation of different emerging technologies are reviewed in this special issue. Much attention is given to the excellent research being performed by different research groups at Brazilian universities and international research centers.