Bijan Davari's new IBM chip packs power, memory
By Kevin Maney
USA TODAY
IBM will unveil Monday a breakthrough system-on-a-chip technology that
could, in about three years, put the power of five of today's desktop computers
into a cellular phone.
The technology for the first time takes a high-performance processor
and adds as much memory as is in three to four PCs and puts it all on a
single silicon chip. The development creates a powerful computer in a thumbnail-size
package.
Other companies, such as LSI Research and Samsung, have added limited
processing power to a memory chip, but the performance of those chips has
always been on the low end. A chip such as IBM's "has been talked
about for three or four years, but the technological problems had been
insurmountable," says G. Dan Hutcheson of VLSI Research, who was shown
the chip by IBM.
The chips are expected to be used in products such as cell phones and
hand-held computers, making it possible for the devices to be much more
powerful a couple of generations sooner. "You could have enough memory
to store voice-mail messages right on the cell phone," Hutcheson says.
Palm-size computers could finally have enough power to handle voice recognition,
says Bijan Davari, the IBM fellow who led the chip's development.
Consumer products with the chips might not come for three to five years,
Davari says. The first applications will probably be in high-end computers
such as Internet routers. The chips can take the place of many, previously
separate components. That should reduce the cost of the computers and increase
performance. "It will be a superb technology for helping build the
communications infrastructure," says Fred Zieber of Pathfinder Research.
The chip announced Monday is essentially a laboratory model. IBM will
start designing versions of the chips for customers in April. The chips
probably will show up in high-end machines next year, Davari says.
Two IBM developments help make the chips possible. One is the much-heralded
1998 discovery of how to use copper wiring in silicon chips instead of
aluminum. Copper wiring can be much thinner while maintaining high performance,
allowing for more dense chips.
The other key is memory, called trench DRAM. Most DRAM capacitors stick
up from the layers of silicon. IBM has drilled into the silicon, leaving
more room to pack the surface. It's like putting the furnace in the basement,
vs. the living room, Davari says.
Those developments, plus IBM's next-generation microprocessor, give
you "high performance out of both memory and logic," Zieber says.
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