On Saturday, Intel and IBM separately announced a new type of
transistor material that the companies say will lead to smaller chips,
increased computing performance, and more energy-efficient computers.
Both chip makers have plans to integrate the new material into the next
manufacturing line of chips–known as the 45-nanometer
generation–within a year. Ultimately, this advance should make
computers better at playing video games, editing movies, and performing
other processor-intense tasks.
Intel, known for its
personal-computer chips, has also announced that the new chips will
appear in its next generation of “dual core” and “quad core” computers
and servers, which are expected to be in production at the end of this
year. IBM, well-known for its servers and high-performance computing
systems, expects that products featuring its new chips will ship by
early 2008.
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Historically, the performance of
microprocessors has doubled every two years, following a trend known as
Moore’s Law. Performance has increased thanks to chip fabrication
technology that has let transistors shrink with each generation, either
allowing more transistors to be packed on a chip or allowing the chips
to be made smaller. Currently, most computer and server microprocessors
are made using what is known as a 65-nanometer process. The next
generation of transistors will be made smaller using a 45-nanometer
process. However, the companies’ new materials will provide this
generation of chip with a performance boost that wouldn’t be possible
otherwise.
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One of the material changes will be in an
important transistor component called the gate dielectric. This
component helps control the flow of electrons, which turn the
transistor on or off. For decades, the gate dielectric has been made of
an insulating material called silicon dioxide. However, as transistors
have shrunk, the layer of silicon dioxide has needed to become thinner. This
poses a problem, however, because a thin layer of silicon dioxide lets
electrical current leak through it, producing excess heat and resulting
in poor device performance.
IBM and Intel found that a
material called high-k produces the same benefits of silicon dioxide,
but it can do so in a thicker layer. The material is based on the
element hafnium, and both companies claim that it significantly reduces
the amount of current leakage.
In addition to having to
replace the gate dielectric, both companies were forced to rethink the
type of material to use for the gate itself–the transistor component
that ultimately turns a transistor on and off. Traditionally, gates
have been made of polysilicon, a less structured form of crystalline
silicon, which is used in the transistor. But in order to make the gate
compatible with the new gate dielectric, Intel and IBM replaced
polysilicon with a metal whose name neither company will disclose at
this time.
Intel says that its new gate
dielectric and metal gate allow transistors to be driven with 20
percent more current than before, which translates into a 20 percent
increase in performance, says Mark Bohr, Intel senior fellow. “We think
this is an important breakthrough that will really extend Moore’s Law.”
Bohr
points out that high-k gate dielectric and metal-gate research are not
new, and that research papers have been being published on advances in
the field for years. However, he’s confident that Intel has found the
best combination of materials that can keep its chip manufacturing on
track into the next decade.
The key to implementing these
new materials successfully is to make sure that they can seamlessly fit
into a manufacturing line, says Bernard Meyerson, chief technologist at
IBM. “You have to take a careful look at how this is implemented,” he
says. IBM has found a way to add the new materials to the fabrication
process without overhauling the entire process, he says, which could be
expensive. Intel’s Bohr says that in terms of manufacturing the new
chips at his company, “most of the process equipment is the same as in
past generations.”