[OT] Florida scientist invents new chip-making technology
The Orlando Sentinel - Posted at 9:33 p.m. PDT Friday, August 14, 1998
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Backed by the some of the biggest names in the microchip
industry, a University of Central Florida scientist has invented a new
chip-making technology that may be a catalyst to mega-fast computers of the
future.
Former Bell Labs researcher William Silfvast, now a UCF physicist, unveiled a
system Friday that he said will help create microprocessors 100 times more
powerful -- and with 1,000 times more storage capacity -- than existing
computer chips.
Although still years away from commercial markets, these chips would
revolutionize everything from home computers and Internet browsing to
artificial intelligence and movie special effects.
Computer tasks that now take minutes, hours or even days would be done in an
instant. And such things as interactive robots -- now in their infancy -- would
potentially become commonplace.
What Silfvast has done is create one of the tools designed to manufacture the
micro-building blocks that will support a quantum leap in the Information Age.
''They will make the most powerful chips now on the market seem like
Model-T automobiles compared to today's high-performance cars,'' he said.
While others nationwide are competing for a similar high-tech prize, Silfvast and
UCF already have landed one patent and three others are pending.
The effort has garnered national attention for UCF and its Center for Research
and Education in Lasers and Electro-Optics. The university could reap a
lucrative bonus if Silfvast's technology becomes the industry standard.
''This is certainly an exciting development,'' said Jess Blackburn, spokesman for
Sematech, a U.S. chip-industry consortium based in Austin, Texas. ''We look
forward to learning more details about it.''
Central to the brave new world of microchips is a process called extreme
ultraviolet -- or EUV -- wavelength lithography. That's when super-micro
invisible light energy is used to print -- or etch -- tiny ''pathways'' onto the chips.
Silfvast's system can print circuits that are less than one-thousandth the
diameter of a human hair, or one-tenth of a micron. The smallest circuits now
on the market are one-quarter micron.
Compared with the competition, advantage of Silfvast's system is its small size,
simplicity and low cost, he said. The light-energy device is about the size of a
thumb, and the entire system could fit into a small filing cabinet.
Its overall cost: less than $1 million, Silfvast said.
Silfvast's chief competitor for development of future-chip generations is Lucent
Technologies Inc., parent company of Orlando-based Cirent Semiconductor.
Cirent has built a close research partnership with UCF in recent years.
Silfvast's work preceded the UCF-Cirent partnership, Cirent spokesman Steve
Goldsmith said.
''In the next five to 10 years, the entire industry is going to have to make a
decision about where it is going in terms of new manufacturing technology,'' he
said.
Lucent's Bell Labs unit in New Jersey is developing an entirely different system
using an electron beam, instead of ultraviolet light, to print the chip circuits.
''The two technologies are viewed by the semiconductor industry as being in a
horse race to see which becomes the standard,'' Silfvast said. ''My personal
opinion is both will eventually find application.''
During the past eight years, Silfvast's work has been financed by $600,000 from
UCF and industry research coalitions that include such members as Intel Corp.,
Motorola Corp. and other major chip makers.
The result: a lab-based prototype that he is now beginning to market to major
industry players.
His next step is to develop a manufacturing prototype that could be tested in an
actual chip factory.
Silfvast is working on that with Sandia National Labs, a leading government
research complex in New Mexico.
Cost will be a major factor determining which competing chip-making
technology becomes dominant, said Jerry Worchel, a senior analyst for In-Stat,
a chip research firm in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Ultraviolet light has long been the most widely used system, so an advanced
version of that technology will have great appeal, he said.
''If (Silfvast's) technology is viable at all, it will be successful,'' Worchel said.
''The conventional technology is running out of steam, so whoever comes up
with the next evolution of it will probably be the winner.''
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