IBM researched and developed new generation transistors

IBM has gone a step further in the race with Intel to produce chips that are smaller in size but run faster by building them on special metal materials.

In response to IBM's efforts, Intel announced on February 26 that it would invest an additional $ 1.5 billion to prepare a new chip factory in New Mexico to build processors. Using the same technology with IBM.

Last January, both companies said they had discovered special materials needed for building transistors with "high density metal gates." These special materials are much better insulated than silicon dioxide as they are today. With silicon dioxide, chip designers have struggled with more and more transistors on each processor, because electrical currents tend to leak from closely attached circuit packs, making the chip hot and not. effective.

So far, both IBM and Intel have not released components of the new composite material. However, February 26, IBM said it had used the powerful supercomputer Blue Gene to simulate 50 combinations of hafnium dioxide and basic silicon. IBM plans to build new chips based on this type of material in 2008.

According to Alessandro Curioni, an expert in supercomputers under the Zurich Research Laboratory (IBM), theoretically, the new form of material is very good, however, IBM engineers need to emulate a lot more. New combination. Curioni is one of three authors who published the results of a study of new chip production materials in the Physical Review Letters journal in January.

Curioni's group used new algorithms and Blue Gene / L supercomputer (4,096 processors) to analyze the numbers. This complex had to work for 5 days to run the simulation of new material combinations, as well as modeling interaction between member molecules. If you use a normal PC, this process will take up to 700 years.

Meanwhile, Intel has said it has made important strides and confidence in the early release of a new version of the chip that uses transistors with "high-density metal gates." Intel plans to use this technology for its 45-nm chip production line - to be launched later this year.