The wonders never cease in the world of semiconductors. Consider these recent advances.
- Seven years ago, IBM created “self-assembling” magnetic materials with long-term applications in data storage. Now, IBM Research is building on that advance to create an airless vacuum insulator material (or “airgap”) for semiconductors which will automatically wrap itself around the tiny copper wiring that runs throughout a microchip. These airgap devices not only run faster, but they consume less electrical power, a very important consideration for environmental and technical concerns.
- Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a “nanoglue” for putting together advanced nanotechnology devices. The stuff is stickier than conventional bonding materials, and — best of all — it’s not that expensive and highly heat-resistant. The RPI researchers put a very thin layer of the material between copper and silica, and found that it grew stronger in its bonding properties at high temperatures, up to 700 degrees C.
- Intel is retiring silicon dioxide, the stalwart insulator material of semiconductors for the past four decades, and substituting a hafnium alloy. The company’s next generation of process technology will make the leap to using the obscure element, which is also being used by IBM Microelectronics. The advanced insulator helps reduce or stop transistor gate leakage, which improves the performance of a microchip.
These are all significant advances, and not pie-in-the-sky research many years away from implementation. Richard Doherty of The Envisioneering Group told BusinessWeek that IBM’s airgap technology is “the most significant semiconductor technology innovation in a decade.” What makes it more impressive is that IBM is moving the technology “from the lab to the fab” in short order, saying it will use the process for volume production of microchips in 2009. Intel will begin making chips with the hafnium-based dielectric insulating material later this year.
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