Preserving Moore's Law & Moving Toward 22-nm Chip Production

Via ComputerWorld -

IBM Corp. and Intel Corp. accelerated their horse race in semiconductors when each unveiled over the weekend similar chip-manufacturing advances.

The research from both companies involves a crucial building block -- called high-k material -- to build smaller, more efficient transistors in microprocessors. High-k materials are better insulators than standard silicon dioxide, allowing engineers to keep shrinking transistors without losing efficiency through leaking electricity.

In both announcements Saturday, engineers say they plan to use the material to build transistors that switch on and off better, using "high-k metal gate" technology.

The announcements promise to keep alive Moore's Law, which holds that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years. It's good news for users because the more transistors that can be packed on a microprocessor, the faster it runs a PC.

The new materials also mean the manufacturers won't have a problem continuing to etch transistors on chips at microscopic sizes, and more importantly, mass-produce them so they're affordable to PC users. In fact, Intel officials predict this breakthrough alone will ensure Moore's Law thrives "well into the next decade."

The announcements underscore an old industry rivalry, since IBM worked with Sony Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), Intel's main opponent in the microprocessor market.

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high-k material – A material that can replace silicon dioxide as a gate dielectric. It has good insulating properties and also creates high capacitance (hence the term “high-k”) between the gate and the channel. Both of these are desirable properties for high performance transistors. “k” (actually the Greek letter kappa) is an engineering term for the ability of a material to hold electric charge. Think of a sponge. It can hold a lot of water. Wood can hold some but not as much. Glass can’t hold any at all. Similarly, some materials can store charge better than others, hence have a higher “k” value. Also, because high-k materials can be thicker than silicon dioxide, while retaining the same desirable properties, they greatly reduce leakage.