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To: John Stewart who wrote (2246)	12/2/1999 11:43:00 AM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3661

Just in case anyone was worried that the pace of technology innovation might slow down any time soon... ++++++++++++++++ December 2, 1999 IBM To Unveil 3 Chip Designs, Shrinking Sizes Further By SCOTT EDEN NEW YORK -- International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) will unveil three new computer-chip technologies at a semiconductor-industry convention next week, innovations Big Blue says will let it shrink chips to dimensions smaller than any device currently available. Chips using the new technologies should hit the market in the next one to two years, said Bijan Davari, IBM's vice president of semiconductor research and development. They will target a range of devices, from relatively simple machines like Internet-ready cell phones to hugely complex computer servers and workstations. "Individually, any one of them would be memorable," said Richard Doherty, director of research for the Envisioneering Group, a marketing research firm in Seaford, N.Y. "But in combination, it's an amazing onslaught." The breakthroughs are significant because some industry experts had called into question something known as Moore's Law, the ability of scientists to keep developing ever smaller and more powerful semiconductors. Driven by demands placed on current microprocessors by surging Internet traffic, the number of transistors that fit on a chip has doubled about every 18 months. Some observers have forecast an insurmountable physical barrier to any further shrinkage, simply because they'll get too small. IBM's new technologies, according to Davari, "fundamentally solve key problems people have been talking about in terms of scaling these devices." For example, the new designs will push the widths of the wiring used to connect computer chips' transistors to 0.10 micron and smaller, he said. The current generation of semiconductors are at 0.18 micron, about 1/500th the width of a human hair. Davari said the key innovation to be detailed at the meeting next week is a chip using both copper transistors and something known as silicon-on-insulator, a potent combination that will help semiconductors process information faster and with less power, using wiring as thin as 0.05 micron. Because copper conducts electricity more efficiently than aluminum - the material used in most chips today - semiconductors using the new design will be able to run super-fast speeds without burning up. IBM will also unveil something called a "buried vertical transistor," a design method that, much like terraced farmland allows for more plantings than do flat fields, will increase the acreage available on the surface of a chip for transistors. Co-developed with Infineon Technologies AG, a German semiconductor concern, the vertical transistor will be used for DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, memory cells, and will target high-performance hubs and routers, the gear that directs Internet traffic. The third innovation is a chip using copper and silicon germanium, a "slippery" substance that lets electrons flow faster over transistors. It will be used in handheld wireless devices, such as cell phones.