Download Intel Says Design Innovations Will Aid Chip Performance

Intel Says Design Innovations Will Aid Chip Performance
New York Times;
New York, N.Y.; Nov 26, 2001; Barnaby J. Feder;
Late Edition (East Coast)
C.6
03624331
Semiconductors
Product design
Innovations
Companies: Intel CorpTicker:INTCDuns:04-7897855Sic:3674Sic:334413Sic:334210Sic:334419Sic:334611Sic:511210Sic:3674Sic:334413Sic:334
789-7855
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Today, Intel will disclose a new structure for high-speed transistors. Unlike many other
designs for bolstering speed, Intel's new structure decreases rather than raises power
requirements. Intel, which is based in Santa Clara, Calif., said it had also developed new
chip materials to reduce power leakage.
Intel said that its latest innovations, which it plans to describe in more detail next week at
the International Electron Devices meeting in Washington, put it on course to be able to
mass-produce microchips with a billion transistors -- 25 times as many as today's Pentium
IV chips -- as early as 2007. Intel said that processors made from these transistors would
switch data 10 times faster than today's larger components with no increase in power
consumption.
Intel said that it had developed a new method for depositing materials one atomic layer at a
time to create a new insulating layer. The new material, technically known as a high K gate
dielectric, has a leakage rate 10,000 times lower than silicon dioxide, Intel said.
Full Text:
Copyright New York Times Company Nov 26, 2001
Intel plans to announce semiconductor design innovations today that it expects will help
it continue doubling the performance of microchips every 18 to 24 months through the
end of the decade.
Such rapid improvement would extend a trend that is known as Moore's law. It dates
back to the 1960's and is named after Gordon Moore, the Intel co-founder who first
identified it. Many experts, including Mr. Moore himself, had expected the so-called law
to break down long ago as the drive to cram more transistors onto individual chips
raised larger and larger challenges in dealing with issues like heat buildup and power
consumption.
Today, Intel will disclose a new structure for high-speed transistors. Unlike many other
designs for bolstering speed, Intel's new structure decreases rather than raises power
requirements. Intel, which is based in Santa Clara, Calif., said it had also developed
new chip materials to reduce power leakage.
As features in transistors shrink to the point that some of them are only a few atoms
wide, it becomes harder to prevent electrons from wandering out of the channels in
which they are supposed to be confined. Leakage drains batteries prematurely at best;
at worst, if transistors are packed closely enough together, it can raise temperatures in
chips high enough to destroy them even when they are not in use.
Intel said that its latest innovations, which it plans to describe in more detail next week
at the International Electron Devices meeting in Washington, put it on course to be able
to mass-produce microchips with a billion transistors -- 25 times as many as today's
Pentium IV chips -- as early as 2007. Intel said that processors made from these
transistors would switch data 10 times faster than today's larger components with no
increase in power consumption.
Intel predicts that such processors will run, among other things, compact personal
computing devices capable of numerous ''real-time'' tasks like processing human
speech as it is being uttered.
''It's pretty phenomenal,'' said Dan Hutchinson, president of VLSI Research, a microchip
technology market research firm based in San Jose, Calif.
''They've solved some of the electrical problems that looked like brick walls,'' said Mr.
Hutchinson, one of a handful of experts Intel briefed in advance on its work.
Whether those solutions can be deployed on mass production lines remains to be
proven. They will require improvements in several forms of production equipment.
The type of transistor most widely used in computing is a microscopic switch in which
current flows from a power source to a power drain when voltage is applied to a raised
feature between them called a gate.
As they have shrunk transistors, chip makers have made sources and drains thinner
and thinner. But just as it becomes harder to push water through pipes as they get
smaller, electrical current encounters increasing resistance as chip features shrink,
requiring designers to apply higher voltages and thus use more power.
In one innovation, Intel has been able to enlarge the source and drain by expanding
them to rise above the surface of the chip. The new design lowers resistance by 30
percent, Intel said.
A second major innovation is a change in the thin layer of insulating material between
the gate and the silicon foundation on which it sits. Current designs use silicon dioxide
insulators, which become unworkably leaky in the latest high-speed chip designs.
Intel said that it had developed a new method for depositing materials one atomic layer
at a time to create a new insulating layer. The new material, technically known as a high
K gate dielectric, has a leakage rate 10,000 times lower than silicon dioxide, Intel said.
A third innovation involves depositing a thin layer of the silicon dioxide insulator on the
silicon base of the chip, directly under the source and drain components. That insulation
seals off a major path of power leakage from the source to the drain.
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