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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD)
AMD 214.990.0%Dec 26 9:30 AM EST
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To: fyodor_ who wrote (43302)6/7/2001 11:56:37 PM
From: Harvey AllenRead Replies (1) of 275872
 
<font color=blue>I.B.M. Finds Way to Speed Up Chips

I. B.M. plans to announce today that it has figured out how to stretch silicon during standard semiconductor manufacturing, a development that is expected to allow it to start making faster, less power-hungry versions of a wide variety of microchips within two years.

I.B.M. said the advances it had developed reduced resistance to electrons flowing through chips enough to bolster processing speeds up to 35 percent. While I.B.M.'s research has concentrated on processors used in computers, the power- saving potential of the new technology may be attractive to manufacturers of cellular phones and other devices that use microchips that amplify signals. "The real breakthrough is that we are using conventional manufacturing technology," said Randall D. Isaac, I.B.M.'s vice president for science and technology.

Researchers have known for decades that electrons will move more freely through semiconductors if the lattice of atoms that make up such crystalline materials can be stretched without breaking any bonds. Stretching also lifts the performance of circuits formed out of negatively charged holes created by the absence of electrons, though not as strongly. But the only chips demonstrating the benefits of what is known as strained silicon had been made in academic labs one at a time or from highly specialized materials.
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I.B.M. said it had also been able to combine its method for producing strained silicon with its previously announced technology for inserting a thin insulator under the crucial processing elements of a chip. That technology, known as S.O.I., for silicon- on-insulator, also speeds up chip performance and reduces power needs. I.B.M. researchers will present papers describing the strained silicon results and its ability to combine the two technologies at a conference next week in Kyoto, Japan.

nytimes.com
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