Intel & IBM: Breakthrough in Chip Technology

Yesterday, in separate announcements, Intel Corp. and IBM detailed major breakthrough in transistor technology in nearly four decades. The breakthrough, achieved via separate research efforts, involves using a new exotic material to make smaller transistors. At the transistor level, the use of basic materials never changed since the 1960s and without a breakthrough, the Moore's Law (that the number of transistors on a chip doubles roughly every two years) was coming to a grinding halt.

Exactly one year after Intel originally disclosed the initial details of its 45-nm process and claimed it had produced the world's first chips based on the technology, the company yesterday announced, in more detail, that it has implemented high-k dielectrics and metal gates for the technology. Intel will use the technology, based on a silvery metal called hafnium, in new processors coming out later this year.

The company claims to be one of the first chip makers to implement these new materials in its process technology. Using an undisclosed thick hafnium-based material for its high-k films in gate-stack applications, Intel claims that it is able to boost the overall performance, while also reducing transistor leakage by more than 10 times over current silicon dioxide technology. Intel's 45-nm process, dubbed P1266, is said to incorporate copper interconnects, low-k dielectrics, strained silicon and other features.

The high-k and metal gate substitutes a new material into a critical portion of the transistor that controls its primary on/off switching function. The material provides superior electrical properties compared to its predecessor, enhancing the transistor's function while also allowing the size of the transistor to be shrunk beyond limits being reached today. The technology can be incorporated into existing chip manufacturing lines with minimal changes to tooling and processes, making it economically viable.

According to Intel Co-Founder Gordon Moore,''The implementation of high-k and metal materials marks the biggest change in transistor technology since the introduction of polysilicon gate MOS transistors in the late 1960s". In the same statement, Mark Bohr, Intel senior fellow, said ''''As more and more transistors are packed onto a single piece of silicon, the industry continues to research current leakage reduction solutions. Our implementation of novel high-k and metal gate transistors for our 45-nm process technology will help Intel deliver even faster, more energy efficient multi-core products that build upon our successful Intel Core 2 and Xeon family of processors, and extend Moore's Law well into the next decade.''

Elsewhere, IBM Corp. also claimed that it has developed the long-awaited improvements to transistor technology: high-k dielectrics and metal gates for use in logic chips, working in collaboration with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and its other development partners, Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp. IBM has found a way to construct a critical part of the transistor with a new high-k/metal gate material, clearing a path toward chip circuitry that is smaller, faster and more power-efficient than previously possible.

IBM has inserted the technology into its state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing line in East Fishkill, N.Y. and will apply it to products with chip circuits as small as 45-nm starting in 2008.

The benefits of the new technique announced by these two world leaders may bring revolution in chip industry. Transistors can be made smaller, potentially doubling the total number in a given area and their speed can be increased by more than 20%, or power leakage can be cut by 80% or more and can effectively cater to the growing trend in consumers to go for more mobility and power-efficient solutions.

Of course, plenty of challenges lie ahead in keeping Moore's Law on track in future years. For example, it is becoming harder to make beams of light narrow enough to etch circuitry on chips. But that's the way the technology progresses. Two years back, the chip industry was not confident enough to chart the future course of the technology and now they have found a great solution and certainly earned some 'happyness' to live with for some more time.