After the Transistor, a Leap Into the Microcosm
New York Times (09/01/09) P. D1; Markoff, John
Computer scientists are focusing on silicon nanowires and other technologies in the hope that they will help usher in a new electronics paradigm that provides greater power than transistors. The impetus behind these efforts is the inevitable day when the transistor’s performance will hit its fundamental physical limits due to its steady shrinkage. “Fundamentally the planar transistor is running out of steam,” says IBM’s John E. Kelly III. Eventually, new materials and new manufacturing processes will be required to maintain the falling cost of computer technology. The long-term view holds to basing new switches on magnetic, quantum, or even nanomechanical switching precepts, with one possibility being to use changes in the spin of an individual electron to represent a 1 or a 0. Scientists in the lab of IBM researcher Frances Ross are investigating the concept of building FinFET switches using a new process in which gold particles are sprinkled on a substrate and then are suffused in a silicon gas at a temperature of approximately 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. The supersaturated particles precipitate into wires that grow vertically. To deliver the switching performance desired by chipmakers, the researchers must develop methods to make the nanowires superconducting as well as perfectly regular in terms of surface.
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Tags: Microcosm, Transistor
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