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To: The Duke of URL© who wrote (92971)	11/23/1999 12:39:00 AM
From: Gordon Hodgson	Respond to of 186894

Engineers report chip breakthrough The new chip is already about 10 times shorter than the standard semiconductor transistor now used by the industry. Scientists hope to cut the length by another half in future. By Reuters November 22, 1999 5:51 PM PT A new semiconductor transistor so tiny that a single computer chip can hold 400 times more transistors than before could help lead to significantly faster and cheaper chip technology, scientists said Monday. Sound off here!! Post your comment to this page. Chenming Hu, a professor electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, said the tiny transistor was much smaller than any other ever developed. "It's a new world record," Hu said of the prototype, dubbed "FinFET". Details of the invention, which was funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, will be unveiled next month at the International Electronic Devices Meeting in Washington. A new gateway The Berkeley breakthrough, announced in a news release, changed the design of the "gate", or switch, on the transistor which controls the flow of electric current in electronic devices. While previously this gate was a flat conductor that controlled only one side of the passage through which the current flows, the Berkeley team has redesigned it as a fork-shaped prong straddling both sides of the passage. This gives much better control and reduced current leakage, meaning the transistor can be made much smaller. Hu said the FinFET's gate is 18 nanometers long, or about the width of 100 atoms. While far too small to be viewed by the naked eye, it is visible through a scanning electron microscope. Hu said it was already about 10 times shorter than the standard semiconductor transistor now used by the industry. And he hoped to cut the FinFET's length by another half in future. Breakthrough confounds predictions The new transistor could help extend the success of the electronics industry, which has profited by making transistors ever smaller over the past three decades and delivering cheaper, better and faster computer ''brains" for electronic products. Chip engineers have long held that the number of transistors on a chip will double every 18 months. But scientists believed that the laws of physics were going to stop that progress soon -- unless a design breakthrough like that proposed by Hu proves practical. Hu said the FinFET prototype was successfully fabricated last July and appeared to perform well. He said no patent had been taken out on the device. "We made the decision not to patent," Hu said. "We want the widest possible usage. We hope this becomes a mainstream transistor structure in the future."

To: The Duke of URL© who wrote (92971)	11/23/1999 7:40:00 AM
From: Amy J	Respond to of 186894

RE: "that don't earn (net!) two hundred million dollars a month that your Baby Bell does. They will be installing equipment in your local C/O" Hi Duke of URL, Let's hope so. Maybe it would create a nice uptick for INTC as consumers upgrade to higher processing CPUs. Regards, Amy J

To: The Duke of URL© who wrote (92971)	11/23/1999 10:34:00 AM
From: John F. Dowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Duke: I'll be the first to let you know when any CLEC bothers with our neighborhood. The are al going for the sweet spot. It has always been economics even for the one wire to your house boys. They still can't figure out how they are going to make $ by losing the second line and replacing it with one that does the job of 2 and pay for the new equipment. For them it is a marginal investment when talking residential service. Duke read the spec. for ADSL it is about 2500 meters. not even 2 miles. Please do a little research on the technology. 5 miles would definitely be a breakthrough. The telcos cannot repeal ohms law as one FERC Commissioner tried to do when addressing electric util. deregulation issues. Let me know the co. that makes the 5 mile chip will you. It is not AWRE,PAIR,WSTL,ORCT or anyone else that can deliver ADSL speeds over 2500 meters at the present state of technology. JFD