A set of ultratiny nanotube transistors made by IBM. Credit IBM Research
In the semiconductor business, it is called the “red brick wall” — the limit of the industry’s ability to shrink transistors beyond a certain size.
On Thursday, however, IBM scientists reported that they now believe they see a path around the wall. Writing in the journal Science, a team at the company’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center said it has found a new way to make transistors from parallel rows of carbon nanotubes.
The advance is based on a new way to connect ultrathin metal wires to the nanotubes that will make it possible to continue shrinking the width of the wires without increasing electrical resistance.
One of the principal challenges facing chip makers is that resistance and heat increase as wires become smaller, and that limits the speed of chips, which contain transistors.
The advance would make it possible, probably sometime after the beginning of the next decade, to shrink the contact point between the two materials to just 40 atoms in width, the researchers said. Three years later, the number will shrink to just 28 atoms, they predicted.
The ability to reduce electrical resistance will not only make it possible to extend the process of shrinking transistors beyond long-held beliefs about physical limits. It may also be the key to once again increasing the speed of computer processors, which has been stalled for the last decade.
The report represents a big advance for an exotic semiconductor material that has long held great promise but has also proved maddeningly difficult for scientists to work with. Single-wall carbon nanotubes are strawlike structures that are a composed of a one-atom thick matrix of carbon atoms rolled into an infinitesimally small tube.
The challenge of carbon nanotubes in their typical state is that they form what scientists call a giant “hairball” of interwoven molecules.
However, researchers have found ways to align them closely and in regularly spaced rows and deposit them on silicon wafers with great precision. They then serve the crucial role of a semiconductor, allowing electrical current to be switched on and off in a computer circuit.
Until now, however, they have been just one of a range of new materials that have been seen as candidates to replace silicon, which has for more than half a century been the material of choice for chip makers.
“Of all the possible materials, this one is at the top of the list by a long shot,” said Dario Gil, vice president for science and technology at IBM Research.
Read more: IBM Scientists Find New Way to Shrink Transistors
The Latest on: Transistors
via Google News
The Latest on: Transistors
- Silicon inspection uses next-generation SWIR camerason February 24, 2021 at 7:01 am
Shortwave-infrared (SWIR) cameras operate in a spectral region in which silicon transmits light, allowing backside wafer inspection.
- Gate insulators at the limiton February 23, 2021 at 10:21 am
The development of competitive field-effect transistors based on two-dimensional semiconductors will also require the development of suitably scaled insulators.
- You just spent up to $250,000 on Drone Sensors-And saved $10 on a battery pack?on February 23, 2021 at 4:55 am
Fred Marks The Impact of the ASTM Standard on Batteries and BMS on Drone Programs The beginning for drones in the form we know today goes back to WW II as the DennyRadioplane. Batteries have always ...
- Researchers report switching material between semiconductor and metallic stateson February 19, 2021 at 10:00 am
A group of researchers from the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin have found out that a semiconductor can ...
- Carbon Nanotube Transistors Are On The Passing Laneon February 18, 2021 at 4:00 pm
In particular, the team managed to assemble arrays of carbon nanotube transistors that outperform their silicon-based predecessors. One obstacle the researchers had to overcome were metallic ...
- Sisters With Transistorson February 11, 2021 at 1:14 am
The film tells the story of electronic music's female pioneers and is narrated by Laurie Anderson. Here's more information direct from the SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS website which has biographical ...
- 'Sisters With Transistors': Pioneers Of Electronic Musicon February 9, 2021 at 3:19 pm
In the 1920s, the Russian physicist Leon Theremin debuted an electronic instrument that could be played without any physical contact. Players stood in ...
- Gate Bipolar Transistors STATCOM Market Development trends, key manufacturers and competitive analysis 2025on February 9, 2021 at 2:05 am
Selbyville, Delaware, Market Study Report LLC recently added a new title on 2020-2025 Global Gate Bipolar Transistors STATCOM Market Report from its database. The report provides study with in-depth ...
- Metrograph Pictures Lands Electronic Music Doc ‘Sisters With Transistors’ (EXCLUSIVE)on February 8, 2021 at 6:28 am
Metrograph Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to “Sisters With Transistors,” a documentary about the women who were the pioneers of electronic music. The film will debut virtually on Metrograph ...
- Retrotechtacular: Old Transistorson January 31, 2021 at 4:00 pm
Transistors have come a long way. Like everything else electronic, they’ve become both better and cheaper. According to a recent IEEE article, a transistor cost about $8 in today’s money back ...
via Bing News
