From IBD Sep 11th
Gov't Helps Intel, Others Manufacture Faster Chips
Date: 9/11/97
Author: Russ Britt
Chipmakers want to make sure they can follow Moore's Law for a few more decades, so they'returning to the government for help.
Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Motorola Inc. are joining forces today with the U.S. Energy Department. Their aim is to develop a way to make microprocessors up to 100 times faster than today's chips.
The Energy Department and the three companies plan to develop a rocess known as extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, at a cost of about $500 million. Details of the financing haven't been released.
Extreme ultraviolet is a new method of drawing circuits onto a silicon wafer. Chip companies hope this process will keep them on track to double microprocessor speeds every 18 months, the tenet of Moore's Law.
Intel declined to comment on the announcement. However, parties who have been briefed on the technology spoke with IBD.
It's no accident that Gordon Moore, co-founder of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel and namesake for Moore's Law, is helping to push the initiative. Moore is scheduled to appear with Energy Secretary Federico Pena at today's conference.
''If there's anyone who understands this technology and its relevance to Moore's Law, it's Gordon Moore,'' said Dan Hutcheson, president of VLSI Research Inc. of San Jose, Calif. ''The existing (technology) is running out of steam. (Chipmakers have) been pushing it year after year.''
Developing extreme ultraviolet is expected to take several years and may not reach production until the middle of the next decade. What if chipmakers decide they want the research done faster?
''Resources will be poured into it (if necessary),'' said Klaus innen, an analyst with Dataquest Inc. in San Jose, Calif.
But chipmakers are in a quandary. A large company such as Intel can fund research on this technology by itself. Yet it is unwilling to do so if there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
In addition to the research money, analysts believe it will take each company involved roughly $1 billion in capital investments to implement extreme ultraviolet.
Intel already is pursuing the use of more primitive forms of ultraviolet light to improve chip speed. Extreme ultraviolet is one of several different technologies the industry has examined.
Alternatives to extreme ultraviolet are being pursued by other companies.
International Business Machines Corp. of Armonk, N.Y., is testing a process utilizing X-rays, while AT&T Corp. of New York advocates a process using electron beams.
''The (Intel) announcement is a very important announcement,'' said Rinnen. ''The question is whether it's an industrywide announcement.''
It's unclear which, if any, of these new processes semiconductor equipment makers like Santa Clara, Calif.-based Applied Materials Inc. will endorse.
Pat Hughes, manager of IBM's advanced chipmaking facility, believes he is farther along in X-ray technology than Intel is with extreme ultraviolet. He says IBM could implement the process by 2001 or 2002.
X-ray also has been proven to squeeze more efficiencies out of the chip-making process, he adds.
''We are watching extreme ultraviolet,'' Hughes said. ''I find it very hard to believe they could get (tighter circuit density) than with an X-ray process.''
Officials connected with the Intel program say extreme ultraviolet is more practical to implement in chip manufacturing.
''My understanding is X-ray is hard to do -read 'expensive,' '' said another official connected with the Intel program.
The Energy Department is involved in the Intel project because the use of extreme ultraviolet is a technology it has researched in the past. VLSI's Hutcheson says its roots extend 20 to 30 years
ago, but it started gaining steam under former President Ronald Reagan's now-defunct Strategic Defense Initiative, or ''Star Wars.''
Under Star Wars, the technology was used to find ways of concentrating energy on a single spot,presumably to zap space- based weapons. Star Wars was abandoned following the breakup of the former Soviet Union.
Three national labs have been developing the process at Sandia, N.M., Livermore, Calif., and Berkeley, Calif. The chip companies will use the labs for part of the development.
The key to improving microprocessor speed is narrowing the microscopic veins used to move and process data inside a chip. By making them smaller, more veins can be packed within a chip,enabling it to process more data.
Chipmakers often use the term microns when discussing stream sizes. One micron is 1/100 the thickness of a human hair. The data streams now used in chips are 0.35 micron and the industry is moving to 0.25 micron.
Companies now are using a process known as stepping to etch the tiny streams into the silicon chip. The process is similar to printing - in fact, the industry calls it lithography.
In stepping, a small stream of visible light is used to burn the images of the data streams onto the silicon. Extreme ultraviolet involves the use of a light that is undetectable to the eye, in the same way ultraviolet rays from the sun cannot be seen.
X-ray also uses undetectable streams of light. But this light is closer to the type of light used in a hospital's X-ray machine, IBM's Hughes explains.
The question of how small the data streams can get under the two technologies seems in question. Officials from the companies involved say it is unlikely they can get below one-fifth the size of
today's data streams. Analysts say it could go as low as 1/20.
Ultimately, however, even newer technology will have to be found to keep boosting the density of chips and thus their processing speeds.
The industry may ask itself how long it wants to continue spending to keep Moore's Law going,says VLSI's Hutcheson.
''Moore's Law might end (due to) economic (restraints), not technical ones,'' Hutcheson said. |
