IBM, Xilinx race Intel on next-generation chip

Lycos Financial - Reuters Financial ^ | 16 Dec 2002, 12:00am ET | Elinor Mills Abreu - Reuters

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SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 16 (Reuters) - In a high-tech horse race to shrink circuits on semiconductors, International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) will announce on Monday that it is in the final phases to create a next-generation 90-nanometer chip for Xilinx Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX) The new 90nm technology, which measures less than one one-thousandth of a human hair, can cut the size of chips by 50 to 80 percent, said IBM Microelectronics of East Fishkill, New York. Chips serve as the brains of electronic devices ranging from cars to PCs to networking equipment.

However, Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) says it has bragging rights to being the first with the new 90-nanometer technology on chips.

By shrinking the size of transistors -- or on-off switches of chips -- from the current 130 nanometers in size, manufacturers can add more features and increase performance.

The new chips will be manufactured on wafers that are 300 millimeters in diameter, as opposed to the current 200 mm technology.

Increasing the wafer size and putting more chips on each wafer gives huge cost advantages to chipmakers and reflects the continuation of Moore's Law, which predicted that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 to 24 months.

IBM is manufacturing the new 90nm chips for Xilinx, which specializes in offering programmable chips to companies for a broad range of uses in consumer, automotive, industrial and communications markets.

In contrast, Intel's microprocessors are sold to PC makers who buy in huge volumes and do not need to program the chip for any special application.

IBM said it will have Xilinx' 90nm chips in sample production in the first quarter of 2003 and in volume production in the second half of the year.

INTEL 90NM CHIPS DUE IN 'PRESCOTT' Intel has said it expects to have 90nm chips commercially available in the second half of 2003, as well, in its next Pentium 4 chip, dubbed "Prescott." Intel has been producing 90nm static random access memory (SRAM) test chips since early 2002, an Intel spokesman said.

Using the new 90nm technology will mean lower prices for Xilinx customers, according to Sandeep Vij, vice president of worldwide marketing at Xilinx, based in San Jose, California.

Xilinx will be able to offer a programmable chip for under $25 at the end of 2004, Vij said. "That same capacity in 2000 would have been about $140 per chip," he added.

"This gives us about a 35 to 70 percent price advantage against competing offerings," he said. "It also allows programmable chips to be used in other applications, such as high-end digital consumer applications, security applications and automotive telematics." With 90nm technology Xilinx can put half a billion transistors onto one chip, two times more than on 130nm chips, Vij said.

Boosting the computing capability will more quickly enable applications like real-time voice recognition and language translation on hand-held devices, said Bijan Davari, a fellow and vice president of technology and emerging products for IBM Microelectronics.

"It would require too much computing power than we have today" to do that, he said.

Xilinx rival Altera Corp. (NASDAQ:ALTR) and its chip manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor <5425.TWO>, say they expect to start producing test 90nm programmable chips in the second quarter of 2003.

Moving to 90nm technology "helps accelerate the overall decline in electronic computer costs," said Jordan Selburn, a principal analyst at market research firm iSuppli in San Jose, California.

"The more warfare you get between different companies, the better it is for the consumer," he added.

"We can say that progress like this means that in two years there will be new devices that are less expensive and more powerful than they are today," said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at research firm and consultancy Insight 64 of Saratoga, California.

A nanometer is one billionth of a meter.

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Keep the good stuff coming!

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From the London Financial Times:

IBM on target with new semiconductor

By Simon London in San Francisco

Published: December 15 2002 20:38 | Last Updated: December 15 2002 20:38

International Business Machines will announce on Monday it is on target to start commercial production early next year of a new generation of smaller, faster and cheaper microchips.

The chips, designed by and manufactured on behalf of Xilinx, a California-based company, will be up to 80 per cent smaller and 70 per cent cheaper than existing alternatives.

The announcement underlines that chipmakers are pushing ahead with new manufacturing techniques despite the sharp downturn in demand for information technology equipment.

It also suggests that IBM has pulled ahead of rivals, including Intel, the world's largest semiconductor company, in the race to mass-produce chips based on the latest "90-nanometre" technology.

"We've thought for some time that IBM has the most advanced process technologies. This seems to confirm that they are maybe six months ahead of Intel," said Bill McLean, an analyst at IC Insights, an industry research firm.

A nanometre is one-billionth of a metre. "Ninety nanometres" refers to the width of the circuit elements on a microchip.

The current generation of integrated circuits, introduced in 2001, is based on 130-nanometre technology. Shrinking the circuit elements results in smaller chips, higher performance and lower costs, because more chips can be manufactured from a single wafer of silicon.

The Xilinx/IBM chips do not compete directly with Intel's microprocessors, most of which are used to power desktop computers. Xilinx specialises in "programmable" chips found in networking and other communications equipment.

However, the big semiconductor manufacturers are locked in a race to perfect the latest generation of production technology, based on larger, 300mm silicon wafers and copper circuit elements.

Companies left behind, or unable to afford the spiralling cost of research, development and new manufacturing plants, risk becoming uncompetitive.

The new chips will be produced for Xilinx by IBM at a $3bn semiconductor fabricator opened earlier this year in New York state.

Sandeep Vij, head of marketing at Xilinx, said that the company hoped to be able to start shipments to customers in March or April.

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OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

[fporretto]

Hm, let's see. The trend in IC design is to make each device smaller, denser, and with broader connections to the world around it, while dissipating more heat and using more of its surface for an increasing number of more delicate, more closely-spaced connectors.

Therefore, the ultimate ICs, the ICs which have maximized these design trends, will be:

Red Hot Fuzz Balls!

Maybe someone should copyright the term.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason:
http://palaceofreason.com

[MigrantOkie]

"Increasing the wafer size and putting more chips on each wafer gives huge cost advantages to chipmakers and reflects the continuation of Moore's Law, which predicted that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 to 24 months."

What idiot wrote this and how did it get past the editor? Increasing the wafer size has absolutly nothing to do with Moore's Law. It more accuratly reflects economies of scale.