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In this business,
having a technical edge is the name of the game. IBM has long been
considered a technology leader, pioneering in the design and development
of many new processes and technologies. IBM recently reaffirmed
its leadership in semiconductor technology with new developments
in process and interconnect technology.
CMOS
Silicon
Germanium (SiGe)
IBM was the
first to develop a manufacturable silicon germanium technology.
Silicon germanium (SiGe),
a material that offers additional speed for telecommunications applications
without further shrinking the circuitry on a bipolar chip, holds
great promise for reducing the cost of consumer products (cellular
telephones and direct broadcast satellite entertainment services),
improving business applications (telephone network transmission),
and helping make possible new applications (collision-avoidance
automobile radar).
Copper
In a recent
technological breakthrough that shook the industry, IBM introduced
a technology that allows chip makers to use copper
wires, rather than the traditional aluminum interconnects, to
link transistors in chips. This advance gives IBM a significant
lead in the race to create the next generation of semiconductors.
Silicon-on-Insulator
(SOI)
In 1999, announced
what it believes to be the first commercially-viable implementation
of silicon-on-insulator (SOI).
The new IBM success in harnessing SOI technology will result in
faster computer chips that also require less power — a key requirement
for extending the battery life of small, hand-held devices that
will be pervasive in the future. SOI refers to placing a thin layer
of silicon on top of an insulator (such as silicon oxide, which
is actually glass). The electronic devices are built on top of this
thin layer of SOI.
This new breakthrough
pushes the leading microelectronics technology, used in the manufacture
of computer chips, one to two years ahead of where it would have
been with conventional bulk silicon technology.
Low-K Dielectric
IBM has now
announced another milestone in semiconductor manufacturing: a new
method for building microchips that can deliver up to a 30 percent
boost in computing speed and performance. This new manufacturing
technique uses a material technologists refer to as a "low-k
dielectric" to meticulously shield millions of individual
copper circuits on a chip. IBM is the first to use the low-k dielectric
technique with copper wiring.
Chip wires are
currently insulated with silicon dioxide. As wires are packed closer
and closer together, a small amount of unwanted charge builds up
between nearby wires, causing electrical "crosstalk" that
hinders performance. IBM has figured out how to replace the silicon
dioxide with a more effective low-k dielectric shield, helping electronic
signals move faster through the chip, improving overall performance.
Find out more
about the potential of these new technologies, and visit our semiconductor
gallery.
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