Topic summary
Complementary MOS
Extracted from the Wikipedia article CMOS.
History
In 1948, Bardeen and Brattain patented the progenitor of MOSFET, an insulated-gate FET (IGFET) with an inversion layer. Bardeen's patent, and the concept of an inversion layer, forms the basis of CMOS technology today. A new type of MOSFET logic combining both the PMOS and NMOS processes was developed, called complementary MOS (CMOS), by Chih-Tang Sah and Frank Wanlass at Fairchild. In February 1963, they published the invention in a research paper. In both the research paper and the patent filed by Wanlass, the fabrication of CMOS devices was outlined, on the basis of thermal oxidation of a silicon substrate to yield a layer of silicon dioxide located between the drain contact and the source contact.