INTEL, IBM UNVEIL NEW TRANSISTORS

Abstract

IN DUELING ANNOUNCEMENTS that mark the culmination of years of research efforts, Intel and IBM say they are using hafnium-based dielectric insulating materials to construct the transistors in their nextgeneration 45-nm-technology chips. Silicon dioxide has been the transistor dielectric material of choice for about 40 years. As chip size has continued to shrink, the SiO 2 layer has been made thinner and thinner to maintain adequate capacitance. In the most advanced chips in production today, which have 65-nm circuit lines, the SiO 2 layer is only 1.2 nm thick. But according to David Lammers, director of the WeSRCH.com networking website for semiconductors—part of the semiconductor market research firm VLSI Research—a layer any thinner is prone to heat-generating electron tunneling. You want a thinner electrical thickness, but you don't want all the current leakage and heat, he says. Thus, in what it dubs the biggest change to computer chips in 40 years , Intel is ...