Elena Gnani received the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering
in 1999 “summa cum laude” and the Ph.D degree in Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science in 2003 with a dissertation
entitled “Physical models for MOS nanostructures”, both from the
University of Bologna. In 2011 she became Research Assistant at the
University of Bologna where she is involved in research activities
concerning the physics, modeling, design and the characterization
of advanced CMOS, beyond-CMOS transistors, quasi ballistic
transport in nanoMOSFETs, and carrier injection in non-volatile
memory cells.
More specifically, she contributed to the development of
physical transport models in semiconductor devices and of
numerical-analysis techniques, with special emphasis on the study
of quantum-confined devices, such as FinFETs, silicon nanowires
(NW), carbon nanotubes (CNT) and graphene nanoribbons (GNR), which
represent possible candidates for future generations of the
nanoelectronic technology. She has developed new simulation tools
for the analysis of quantization effects due to the electron
structural, or field-related, lateral confinement, but also for
quantum transport effects which must be taken into account for
devices with gate lengths of few nanometers, namely band-to-band
tunnelling and quasi-ballistic transport, which are commonly
neglected by the semi-classical approximation. Moreover, EG devised
a new physical model for the investigation of the electronic
properties variation related to non-parabolicity effects of the
energy dispersion relationship E(k), which take place for nanowire
devices with a cross section of few nanometers.
Currently her research activity is on the study of new device
concepts able to reduce the power consumption of integrated
circuits. Power dissipation is becoming the greatest challenge for
today's electronics, as it puts a limit to the maximum clock
frequency and, thus in the performances attainable from a single
processing unit. This goal can been pursued exploring new types of
devices able to to achieve a transition from the OFF state to the
ON state more abrupt than the classical limit of 60mV/decade
provided by classical devices. This would allow a reduction of the
leakage current below threshold and, therefore, of the supply
voltage.
She participated in many European and National Projects, and
is presently involved in the following international
projects:
- European Project “Graphene-based Devices and Circuits for RF
Applications (GRADE)” (EU Contract n. FP7-317839).
- European Project “Technology CAD for III-V
Semiconductor-based MOSFETs (III-V-MOS)” (EU Contract n.
FP7-619326).
- European Project “Energy Efficient Tunnel FET Switches and
Circuits (E2SWITCH)” (EU Contract n. FP7-619509).
She has been the principal investigator in the research
projects “Futuro in Ricerca” (FIRB) Novel device and circuit
concepts for energy-efficient electronics funded by the Italian
Ministry of University. The objective of this project is to study
device architectures able to outperform the ITRS predictions in
terms of off- and on-current, with the aim of reducing the voltage
operation of advanced nanoelectronic circuits into sub-0.5V and
their stand-by power consumption by one order of magnitude.
Her research activities have been carried out in cooperation
with worldwide semiconductor research centers and semiconductor
industries, including EPFL di Losanna (Switzerland),
Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany), CEA-LETI di Grenoble (France),
IBM Zurigo, ETHZ Zurigo (Switzerland), Institute of
Microelectronics (IME) di Singapore, Infineon Technologies AG, KTH
Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), IHP - Innovations for High
Performance Microelectronics (Germany), ST-Microelectronics
(France) e Texas Instruments (USA).
She serves as reviewer of many international journals:
- IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices
- IEEE Electron Device Letters
- IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology
- Solid State Electronics
- Journal of Applied Physics
- Applied Physics Letters
- Journal of Computational Electronics
- Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
- Physica-E
- International Journal for Computation and Mathematics in
Electrical and Electronic Engineering (COMPEL)
and is part of the Technical Program Committee of:
- European Solid-State Device Conference (ESSDERC)
- IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM)
- Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE)
- Joint International EUROSOI Workshop and International Conference on Ultimate Integration on Silicon” (EUROSOI-ULIS)
Publication Report
E. Gnani is author or co-author of more than 175 papers
published in referred international journals and in proceedings of
major international conferences, and of several invited
contributions.
- Total number of publications on refereed international
journals in the last 10 years: 75
- Total numer of citations: 1690
- h-index: 23