IBM chip advance spurs "system-on-a-chip"
products
From ibm.com
On February 22, IBM announced a major advance in semiconductor technology
that will allow complete electronic systems to be built on a single silicon
chip.
Capitalizing on IBM's leadership in copper technology, the company
has found a way to efficiently place both logic and memory circuits on
a single piece of silicon. This can significantly enhance the performance
of many electronic products, from personal computers to cell phones to
video games, while reducing the number of chips inside, making products
smaller and less expensive.
Logic circuits process information, while memory circuits store information;
the two are used in tandem to add "intelligence" to electronic
products. Until now, the two functions have normally been provided on separate
chips, adding complexity and cost. With IBM's technology, twenty-four million
"gates," or circuits -- equal to as much as eight times the processing
and two to four times the memory found on today's typical PC -- can be
packed on a single chip.
This removes a major hurdle in the electronics miniaturization race,
clearing the path to eventual "system-on-a-chip" products and
a new wave of pervasive computing devices. IBM plans to start designing
custom chips with this capability in April of this year.
"Until now, having processing power and data on separate chips
was like having the materials you need to do your job in another office,"
said Bijan Davari, IBM Fellow and vice president of development for the
IBM Microelectronics Division. "This forces you to keep going next
door to get what you need. By placing logic and DRAM together on a single
chip, we're making sure that the processor has what it needs close at hand,
allowing it to operate more efficiently."
Previous approaches typically yielded chips that compromised the function
of logic or memory or both. Using IBM's unique combination of copper wiring
and DRAM (dynamic random access memory) "trench cell" design,
chips can be built that not only maintain logic function, but actually
improve memory capability as much as ten-fold, making this integration
viable for the first time for a wide range of applications.
IBM's thinner copper wiring is used in combination with circuitry as
small as 0.15 micron (less than 1/600th the width of a human hair), placing
those circuits closer together and squeezing in more logic. The small size
of IBM's memory cells allows them to be added to the chip as well without
interfering with the maze of copper wiring or logic transistors.
IBM will first make this new embedded memory available in a custom
chip template dubbed SA-27E. IBM is a worldwide industry leader in complex
application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips, with current designs
as large as thirteen million gates and an average gate count per design
of about 1.5 million. This compares to an industry average of about 500,000.
Customized ASIC chips are growing in use, powering everything from computers
to consumer electronics. In a recent report, Dataquest Inc. estimated that
ASICs containing embedded DRAM represented a $450 million business in 1998,
growing to $7.5 billion by 2002.
IBM has a unique combination of process technology leadership, system
level experience and custom logic expertise that has improved the way chips
are designed, helping manufacturers meet consumer and business demands
for smaller, faster, lower-power electronic products. The company has led
the industry in the introduction of new materials for chip making, including
copper, silicon-on-insulator and silicon germanium -- complementary breakthroughs
that improve the efficiencies of chip function.
For more information about these and other semiconductor products from
IBM, visit the IBM Microelectronics Web site.
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