An interesting issue with the fusion barrier, and that will significantly impact its utility long term, is how long will it last. Presumably, IBM developed the fusion barrier within the last year or so, and have been testing it under various conditions (normal voltage/current/temperature, elevated voltage/current/temperature, etc.). If you are a chip user, however, you want to be sure that the fusion layer will last for more than a year or two since breakdown of the layer would destroy the chip. Thus, companies will probably not immediately start using these chips until they are assured that they will last. (As I recall, a number of years ago, there was a qualitatively similar problem with hard drives. A lubricant layer was applied to the surface of the disc, and it tended to move to the outside of the disc due to angular acceleration on a spinning disc. At some point, the lack of lubricant on the inside of the disc and the build-up of lubricant on the outside of the disc would cause the head to crash. The problem was solved by IBM with a non-migrating lubricant, which gave then a huge advantage in the disc drive market.)
As to the ability of IBM to give an exclusive license to a tool supplier, this would depend upon the type of patent that IBM receives (process patent, material patent, etc.). I do not think that this is an important issue since it is likely that there will be multiple ways and materials that can be used to generate the Si/Cu barrier. |
