Download IBM Leapfrogs Intel to 7nm

IBM Leapfrogs Intel to 7nm
EUV FinFETs Use Germanium Channel
PORTLAND, Ore.--IBM Research (Albany, N.Y.) has leapfrogged Intel to the 7nanometer node by perfecting extreme ultra-violet (EUV) lithography and using silicongermanium channels for its finned field-effect transistors (FinFETs). This breakthrough
demonstration should also keep IBM on-track in delivering its next-generation Power 8+
next year and it Power-9 processors the year after, manufactured for it by
GlobalFoundries. Alliance development partner Samsung will also get a leg-up on its
race to catch up with Intel by 2018 when the first production 7-nanometer chips are
expected to appear. The 7-nanometer test chips were fabricated at the alliance's 300
millimeter fab at the State University of New York (SUNY) Polytechnic Institute's
Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE, Albany, New York).
"I'm surprised and impressed," Richard Fichera, vice president and principal analyst at
Forrester Research (Cambridge, Mass.) told EE Times in advance of the
announcement. "It doesn't mean they are going win the 7-nanometer race, but it shows
that they are still in the race. People that were counting them out are now going to be
changing their minds. IBM has done a lot of materials research and gate design to make
this happen, whereas all the stuff that Intel talked about at 7-nanometer node was
hesitant. There is no guarantee that IBM will get it into production before Intel, but its a
wakeup call to Intel that there is someone breathing down their neck even if Intel ends
up becoming the major producer of 7-nanometer parts."
The three major breakthroughs made by IBM to produce its test chip is the perfection of
EUV lithography, the successful deposition of strained silicon-germanium transistor
channels on bulk silicon wafers, and its optimization of middle-of-the-line and back-endof-line processing for minimization of parasitic capacitance, thereby making its process
manufacturable by merely transferring it to a 7-nanometer fab (which will cost
GlobalFoundries and Samsung upwards of $6-to-10 billion each to build).
"Our test chip has all the features we knew that we needed to keep our Power series of
processors ahead in performance," Mukesh Khare vice president of semiconductor
technology for IBM Research told EE Times in advance of the announcement. "Our test
chip is a quantum leap forward--we have FinFETs, SRAM cells, interconnects and
everything else you need on it to make real 7-nanometer Power processors."
Of course, IBM still plans to come out with its 10-nanometer Power processors, the
design for which was revealed at last year's 2014 International Symposium on VLSI
Technology and Applications, probably in 2016. But it now is on-track to keep Moore's
law going to the 7-nanometer node too, circa 2018.
"We have more work to do on it before transferring to manufacturing, of course, but we
are very excited about out results so far," Khare told us. "We have successfully made a
major change in lithography, a major change in materials and insured the way forward
for IBM high-performance systems for cloud computing and big data."
Besides showing the way forward for IBM Systems, the 7-nanometer demonstration is
also an endorsement of the joint development alliance with GlobalFoundries, Samsung
and their equipment suppliers--after all GlobalFoundries is just a half-hour down the
freeway from IBM's lab at SUNY and Samsung having access to the processing details
should boost its credibility at 7-nanometer as well.
Transmission electron microscope (TEM) image of IBM's 7-nanometer node finned field
effect transistors (FinFETs) packed below 30-nanometer fin pitch using self aligned
patterning.
(Source: IBM Research)
"I think IBM, GlobalFoundries and Samsung are celebrating their successful
collaboration with SUNY at 7-nanometer. This is a real commitment to the idea that IBM
does not need fabs and they're proud that they are going be able to supply fabs with this
turn-of-the-crank on Moore's law," Richard Doherty, research director of the
Envisioneering Group (Seaford, N.Y.) told EE Times in advance of the announcement.
"The next phase of semiconductors will be very different, especially regarding Intel.
IBM's secret sauce is its silicon-germanium channels and would have been an amazing
achievement at 10-nanometer, but at 7-nanometer are remarkable."
According to Khare, competitors who have fabricated 7-nanometer test chips have kept
mum about it because their performance was actually worse after scaling, but IBM has
worked very hard to optimize each phase of the process to insure the kind of bump in
performance you would normally expect from Moore's law. Their 7-nanometer FinFETs
are stacked at below 30-nanometer pitch, packing them closer by nearly 50 percent with
at least a 50 percent power/performance improvement as well, according to Khare.
Professor Michael Liehr (left) of SUNY Polytechnic Institute's Colleges of Nanoscale
Science and Engineering (SUNY Poly CNSE) and Bala Haran (right) of IBM Research
inspect 7-nanometer wafer of test chips developed in alliance partnership between IBM
and SUNY Poly CNSE.
(Source: Darryl Bautista/Feature Photo Service for IBM)
"EUV was very challenging--a difficult project that had to go through many material
changes and optimizations to successfully fabricate at 7-nanometers," Khare told us.
"But IBM has long history of semiconductor breakthroughs, including the single cell
DRAM, chemically amplified photoresists, copper interconnects, SOI, strained
engineering, multi-core processors, immersion lithography, high-k gate dielectrics,
embedded DRAM, 3D chip stacking and air gap insulators. This is just the beginning of a
new era of breakthroughs as a result of our $3 billion investment for five years
announced in 2014, which also includes research into quantum computing and
graphene."
In recent years, IBM appeared to have been moving toward becoming a solution
provider with its successes with Watson and cloud computing infrastructure, but its
successes in basic semiconductor research do not seem to have suffered, according to
Roger Kay, founder and president of Endpoint Technologies Associates (Wayland,
Mass.)
"Their 7-nanometer test chip is obviously a breakthrough, but its still in its early days and
a long-way from the fab," Kay told us in advance of IBM's announcement. "There is also
a little bit of irony in that Intel has expressed extraordinary confidence in getting to 7nanometer first. Intel said they have 10-nanometer nailed and 7-nanometer on the way,
but Intel has been very quiet lately and now it appears that IBM is ahead at 7nanometer. Everyone has been struggling with EUV, but IBM says they have it worked
out, but the silicon-germanium channels is the real news. If all goes as planned for IBM,
we will see samples of 10-nanometer chips from Intel and IBM next year, while the other
guys are at least a year behind."
Close-up of IBM 7-nanometer node test chip produced at SUNY Polytechnic Institute's
Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (Albany, New York).
(Source: Darryl Bautista/Feature Photo Service for IBM)
The multi-billion dollar Albany NanoTech Complex, built in collaboration with New York
State, includes a $500 million program with several other nano-electronics companies.
The Complex also offers SUNY engineering students scholarships and fellowships to
prepare them for the next era of computer chip technologies.