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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maxwell who wrote (31707)	4/11/1998 10:45:00 AM
From: Yousef	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1573640

Maxwell, Re: "The specs you gave me for the 0.18um looks pretty old technology to me. You will have difficulties getting into the Gigahertz range." No, the specs I gave you will give very high drive currents at low operating voltages ... BTW, you didn't even ask the most important question. "What is the supply voltage and target Idsat". It seems that Bert's take home test from SOF was made up a number of years ago. <ggg> Re: "#4) No need to go to low-K. I can tell you now that your R will dominate your C. C doesn't really come in till you pass the Gigahertz limit, especially at least 2GHz." This is absolutely WRONG ... A FET and backend interconnect can be simply modeled as a voltage variable current source with a series Resistance and parallel Capacitance ... simple RC circuit driven by a current source. In this circuit, Cpacitance is what determines how high the frequency can go. This assumption is valid as long as the FET does not become de-biased (Vd stays > Vdsat). I HAVE been able to hit the gigahertz range with these specs. Make It So, Yousef

To: Maxwell who wrote (31707)	4/11/1998 2:57:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1573640

Maxwell - Re: ' IBM's copper technology using dual damascene is easier to work and is a superior process." Clearly you have Read And Believed All The Hype - without investigating the facts! At the ISSCC in February, IBM described their experimental PowerPC chip built on a 0.20 process with 6 layers of copper - and it reached a peak speed of 480 MHz. In the same ISSCC session, Intel presented their Deschutes (Pentium II) Processor - based on a 0.25 micron process, 5 layers of metal (aluminum/Tiatinum) and it perked along at 450 MHz. In other words, Intel's current technolgy is nearly equivalent to what IBM HOPES to achieve in their next generation copper/damascene technology. By the way - the 450 MHz Deschutes is not a laboratory curiosity. Debate within Intel continues as to whether it will be introduced next Wednesday along with the 350 and 400 MHz Deschutes. Paul