Date: 07/05/2006

IBM achieves 10th breakthrough in chip making

IBM achieves 10th breakthrough in chip making

IBM has listed 10 breakthroughs in 10 years (starting from 1997) of time frame in semiconductor chip manufacturing. The latest is creating nanometer vacuum gaps to reduce inter-lead capacitance.

The breakthroughs are,

1. Replacement of aluminum with copper for it's better electrical and physical properties.
2. Silicon in insulator to reduce power consumption.
3. Strained silicon for it's improved mobility of electrons.
4. Multi core processors to rise processor performance.
5. Immersion lithography, a simple technology to reduce the line widths.
6. Pushing silicon and germanium to perform at highest frequency of 500GHz
7. New high K material to reduce transistor leakage current.
8. By replacing on-chip SRAM with new type high performing DRAM.
9. Stacking silicon chips one above the other to save space.
10. Nanometer air gaps inside the chip to reduce unwanted capacitance.