Almost simultaneously, Intel and IBM (acting with AMD and Toshiba) have announced a breakthrough in the basic design of transistors — the tiny switches which together make up building blocks.

Back to basics for a second. The idea of almost all computing is binary. Counting to the base of two. Which means that if you have a switch it can be in two states — on or off — which fits in perfectly with the binary system which is 0 and 1 represented by on and off.

It is perfectly possible to build a series of switches the size of a big billiard table — it has been done — so that the switches can be seen for what they are, switches. However, billiard tables do not easily fit into notebook computers so the race has always been to make these chips smaller and smaller. And, as you do that, you bring up a new set of problems which is insulating the switches one from the other.

It is very expensive to build a machine that can make these very small chips so that they do not keep shorting — breaking through the insulation. Several billion dollars are needed to play in this game because a fabricating plant, called a fab, costs something to the north of $3 billion.

This technology had been miniaturized just about as far as it could do. The co-founder of Intel, Gordon Moore, once postulated the theory that the number of transistors on a chip doubles roughly every two years. This was called, totally incorrectly, Moore’s Law. It was not a law of any sort. More Moore’s suggestion of the way the industry would go.

For several years, perhaps since as long ago as the early sixties, this has held true. We kept getting smaller and more powerful chips for less money. And so computing progressed.

However, there is a limit to how many times you can halve a finite size because the insulator — silicon — does not work desperately well at the extremes of minimalism. And, at the moment the insulation used is mainly silicon, hence the name Silicon Valley.

Intel says 2,000 of the new electronic gates it is announcing could fit across a hair. Silicon cannot provide the insulation needed at that level because it can only be five atoms thick.

So the major breakthrough being announced is the ability to replace silicon as an insulation with a form of hafnium — a metal so dense that it is used in nuclear reactor control rods to absorb neutrons. (Does this mean we will be talking about Hafnium Valley. I think not. It lacks charm.)

Intel senior fellow Mark Bohr, seen in our picture holding a wafer of chips, said at this ultra small-size with silicon there was a risk of the insulator layer leaking. Which is not a good idea. Hafnium does not leak.

As well as using hafnium instead of silicon Intel said it had to make one other change: link the new insulation layer to a new, metal gate switch. But that is commercially sensitive information and so the material has no name outside the Intel laboratories. Let us call it unobtainium.

So the next generation of chips, using hafnium and unobtainium, can be made with circuitry as small as 45 nanometers, which is very small, indeed. About 1/2000th the width of a human hair.

Steve Smith, vice president of Intel’s digital enterprise group operations, said, ‘We do expect that those products will deliver higher performance levels than existing products. What we’re seeing is excellent double-digit performance gains on media applications.’

That means, I think, the chips will work faster.

Meanwhile, in the other corner, IBM expects its new technique to be seen next year in chips made by its partners, which include AMD and Toshiba.

This new technology will lend itself to refinement so that eventually we will have circuitry which will be just 22 nanometers.

Jim McGregor, an analyst with technology market research firm In-Stat, said, ‘Consumers are going toward mobility and power-sensitive solutions. We need to not only make things smaller and more efficient but also use less power.

If you will excuse the phrase ‘power-sensitive solutions’ he has it precisely. We want smaller more efficient computers that will use less power. This technology will give it to us. Prepare yourself for the hafnium age.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, January 27th, 2007 at 12:05 pm under Intel, Science and technology, Technology.

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