High-k dielectrics for gate-stack applications in logic devices continue to make slow progress, however. But the new and potentially larger growth market for high-k appears to be in another sector: NAND flash.

''That's going to be huge volumes,'' said Farhad Moghadam, senior vice president and general manager of the Thin Films Product Business Group and Foundation Engineering at Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), in an interview at a recent event.

One of the first drivers in this arena is NAND giant Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. In September, Samsung announced that it had developed the industry's first 32-gigabit (Gbit) NAND flash memory, based on 40-nm design rules and the company's proprietary Charge Trap Flash (CTF) architecture.

Also based on what it claimed to be the first implementation of high-k dielectric films for NAND, Samsung said the 32-Gbit NAND flash part can be used in memory cards with densities of up to 64 gigabytes (GB).

While high-k has made inroads in DRAMs, and now, NAND flash, the technology has experienced mixed results in other areas. Leading-edge chip makers are racing each other to develop high-k films for gate-stack applications — and for good reason: silicon dioxide is running out of gas.

''There is no option,'' said Raj Jammy, director of the Front-end Process Division at chip-making consortium International Sematech (Austin, Texas). ''Scaling has stopped.''

But for logic applications, the deployment and integration of high-k films has been more difficult than previously thought. Most leading-edge chip makers have delayed their plans to use high-k. Some have announced plans to use high-k based on hafnium films in different stages.

High-k for logic devices could be ready as early as the 45-nm node, said Sri Samavedam, manager of MOSFET materials and integration at Freescale Semiconductor Inc. (Austin, Texas). ''It looks promising,'' he said. ''We are in the stage of moving it into manufacturing.''

Mariko Takayanagi, a device manager for Toshiba Corp. (Tokyo), also said that high-k and metal gates will be ready for the 45-nm node. ''It's ready for low standby power applications,'' said Takayanagi, who is representing Toshiba as part of the company's process-technology alliance with Sony Corp. and IBM Corp.

The representatives from Freescale and Toshiba declined to comment when their respective companies would put a device in production based on high-k and metal gates.

Most experts see the real volumes for high-k and metal gates coming at a much later stage. In logic applications, high-k is finally expected to move into volume production at the 32-nm node, according to Applied's Moghadam.