IBM Devises Technology to Double Chip Speed
IBM Corp., the largest maker of custom microprocessors, said Sunday it has found a way to make chips for optical networks run about twice as fast and with less power.
The process reduces the height of microscopic transistors on silicon chips, shrinking the distance electrons must travel. This also cuts the power required to move the electrons. Communications equipment makers including Applied Micro Circuits Corp. and closely held Sierra Monolithics Inc. are working to develop the process, and chips could appear on the market within two years, IBM said.
Sales by IBM’s microelectronics division have grown as the company transforms research advances into marketable semiconductors for its own devices and those of other computer and circuitry makers. A key to its latest chip enhancement is that it can be incorporated quickly into existing production processes, IBM says.
“I wouldn’t call it a breakthrough, but I’d call it a major advance--for the whole industry,” said Jay Patel, optical components analyst at consulting firm Yankee Group. “The technology they develop is ultimately picked up by a lot of semiconductor companies.”
IBM’s latest step toward faster transistors focuses on chips that typically use vertical, rather than horizontal, transistors. These include chips for optical networks. IBM already has been infusing silicon--the basic material of semiconductors--with germanium, to make electrons flow faster.
The company has found a way to deposit a thinner layer of silicon germanium on chips to make vertical transistors shorter. The shorter the transistor, the faster an electron flows through the device. The transistor is about 100 atoms thick, or one-fifth to one-tenth the current industry standard, said Bernard Meyerson, who runs IBM’s Communications Research and Development Center.
Current communications chips run at 10 gigahertz, or 10 billion cycles per second. Chips running at 40 gigahertz are expected in the marketplace soon. With its new process, IBM expects to see chips running at least from 80 to 100 gigahertz, Meyerson said.
As speed improves in data networks using fiber optics, the performance of chips that process and transfer information in them must keep pace.
Communication-network chips typically need higher performance, akin to horsepower in a car, than chips for personal computers or server computers, Meyerson said.
Shares of Armonk-based IBM rose 27 cents to close at $112.87 on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. They’ve risen 33% this year, to become the second-best performer in the 30-company Dow Jones industrial average for 2001.
