More on the implantable chip
Wednesday, 6 November, 2002, 10:28 GMT
Chip expected to enter mass production next year
By Maggie Shiels In Silicon Valley
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2404599.stm
Thinner chips with everything
Engineers have crossed a symbolic barrier with a new way to make microchips
with transistors that are a thousand times smaller than the width of a
human hair or as small as a flu virus.
The 90-nanometre width is regarded as a major milestone because scientists
believe it will eventually lead to the production of transistors with
atomic level dimensions.
The industry's largest chip maker Intel is at the forefront in
manufacturing the world's smallest commercial transistors, giving it a
leading edge in the production of semiconductors that run everything from
mainframe computers to mobile phones.
But eagerly snapping at the chip giant's heels are competitors like IBM,
Advanced Micro Devices and Texas Instruments.
Intelligent machines
The Silicon Valley company says it will reach mass production with the
90-nanometre chip-making process, code-named Prescott, in the second half
of next year.
One nanometre is a billionth of a metre, or a millionth of a millimetre.
We want to make our microprocessors as intelligent as possible because then
you can do a lot more with them
Manny Vara, Intel Rob
Willoner, a technical analyst at Intel, said: "This is an
awesome development.
"We have been developing the 90-nanometre process for several years and
we've seen some significant results and are on target to start producing
microprocessors on that technology for sale next year."
Chips typically have millions of transistors, so making them smaller allows
more of them to be laid down in the same space and enables the chip to
operate faster because electrical signals have a shorter distance to travel.
Intel spokesman Manny Vara said: "The more transistors you have in a chip,
the more intelligence you have.
"We want to make our microprocessors as intelligent as possible because
then you can do a lot more with them."
He envisages smarter devices that can, for example, translate English into
a foreign language in real-time or mobile phones that let you watch a movie
with a quality picture and sound.
Mr Vara also predicts an era of "clever computers" that will do things like
your shopping online for you by merely showing it a photograph of the item
you want, instead of you having to laboriously surf individual websites.
He said most of the products we use today could be likened to a VW Beetle
in terms of speed but with the 90-nanometre process, they will be turned
into Ferraris.
Smaller, faster
The new process spearheaded by Intel packs two and a half times more
transistors into a given space. It relies on four innovations to produce
these smaller, faster and more intelligent chips that gobble up less power.
A plant in Oregon is already turning out chips with 90 nanometre wide
components using strained or stretched silicon, the foundation for all
chips, so that signals run faster across the chip.
90-nanometre width regarded as a major milestone
The second step is the ability to build thinner transistors; microscopic
silicon-based switches that rapidly open and close to create the ones and
zeroes of the digital world.
The exclusive use of copper to connect the transistors is the third major
step because it is a better conductor that aluminium.
And the final process is a carbon-based wire insulator that helps reduce
power consumption by cutting down on the drag on signal speeds.
Rob Willoner said: "The big benefit is that the transistors are smaller so
that they can run faster and that allows us to crank up the speed.
"For example we are about to introduce the 3 gigahertz Pentium. That's
three billion switches per second and it wasn't so long ago we were in the
tens of megahertz which was tens of millions of switches," he said.
"So we are roughly doubling our microprocessor speeds and the number of
transistors on a chip every other year."
Chips currently in commercial production are generally 130-nanometres to
180 nanometres wide. Thinner circuitry achieves the holy grail of making
each separate chip cheaper to produce, faster and more energy efficient.
Big business
In this high stakes game, the company that gets their goods on the shelf
first is the one that can clean up.
Intel is investing $12.5bn in new manufacturing technologies at a time when
the pockets of other players are not so deep.
"Historically the companies that invested in the downturn are the ones that
benefited in the long run," said analyst Dan Hutcheson of VLSI research in
San Jose.
The speed of progress is in line with Gordon Moore's 1965 prediction -
Moore's Law - that the number of transistors on a chip will double every 18
months or so.
In that same year, Intel was able to put 30 transistors on a single chip.
By 2010, the company confidently predicts it will be putting 10 billion
transistors on a chip.