Posted on 04/15/2005 2:06:56 PM PDT by LaserLock
A pair of physicists in the US has built the fastest ever transistor: one that can operate at a frequency of over 600 gigahertz. Developed by Walid Hafez and Milton Feng at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the device is made from the semiconductors indium phosphide and indium gallium arsenide (Appl. Phys. Lett. 86 152101). The work demonstrates the feasibility of making transistors that can operate at frequencies of several terahertz, which could be used in ultrafast communications, high-speed computing, medical imaging and sensors.
The new device is a so-called bipolar transistor, which is very different from the more well-known field-effect transistor. In it, electrons are injected from the "emitter" terminal, travel towards the "base" and are then received by the "collector", an arrangement that allows the device to work faster than a field-effect transistor.
Hafez and Feng have previously built a high-frequency bipolar transistor, but this earlier work focused on reducing the time it takes electrons to pass through the device by minimizing the device's vertical thickness. Their new research further increases electron speeds through the device by slightly varying, or "grading", the composition of the semiconductor layers. This, say the researchers, lowers the band gap in selected areas of the transistor and makes it easier for electrons to travel across the device.
The two physicists have shown their transistor can operate at a frequency of 604 gigahertz, a new record. However, according to Hafez, what is more important is that they have developed a technology that could be used to build transistors operating in the terahertz range. "Projections from our earlier high-frequency devices indicated that in order to create a transistor with a cutoff frequency of 1 terahertz, the devices would have to operate above 10,000 degrees C," he says. "By introducing the grading into the layer structure of the device, we have been able to lower the potential operating temperature for a terahertz transistor to within an acceptable range."
Devices operating at terahertz frequencies (the far infrared) could be used in communications applications or as sensors to detect toxic gases. They could also be used for medical imaging, since the radiation is long enough to penetrate skin and image what lies underneath.
The researchers' next step is to show that their devices can be assembled into circuits.
Yeah. I've seen purple plague twice in my career, decades apart...
The stuff I remember was a little more brown but same consistancy of honey ... and it smelled ... like acetone ... it's been a while though
Gimme a minute. I vaguely recall something like that.
Yes, oh engineering mastahs.
(young grasshoppah bowing down in reverence)
When we were K2, Cadence informed us we could either join them and be their presence in the back-end market or be crushed by them, so we joined them.
I get to see these 400GB designs they are building and they are stupendous. IBM, TSMC, TI, the sheer, freaking volume of data is mind boggling.
That's 0.7V for silicon...
Yep! Even in the 90's, I hammered a small San Jose company for Au-Al intermetallic failures (AKA "Purple Plague") -- and for junction drift due to sodium contamination.
We do tend to re-invent the bad wheels -- along with the good!
I remember my Dad made his living building circuit boards using everything from small ones with only 2 leads to one side, to much bigger ones with up to 10 per side, he even drilled his own boards.
That was back in late 70's, he worked for Cannon, NOAA, and then NSA. He had a rack of plastic slide drawers full of those little things!
Now that rings a distant bell ... don't know where though. We are still using TSMC libraries ... even in this design. Used a lot ... a whole lot of TSMC at .13 and .09 and now we are at .065 nanometer
(Extra points for naming the title of the movie that this paraphrases!)
I still keep a pile of chips where I can see the traces with the magnifying glass on my swiss army knife, reassuring to know it is still the same stuff.
Ya Want some news?
MANHASSET, N.Y. — Intel will formally announce that it has begun shipping its dual-core Pentium processors on Monday (April 18), the company said Friday. "We are now confirming that [our] first-ever dual core PCs — our processors and chip sets — will be shipping from OEMs starting Monday morning," Intel spokeswoman Shannon Love said in an email. "For some time, this date had been set to coincide with the eve of the official 40th anniversary of Moore's Law."
"Our definition of launch means that consumers will be able to fulfill their PC orders starting Monday morning from a choice of OEMs," Love explained.
Intel first revealed that it had begun initial shipments of its Pentium Processor Extreme Edition model 840 to customers this past Monday, in an announcement made by company vice president Abhi Talwalker said at a conference in Taiwan. Running at a clock speed of 3.2 GHz, that processor is a high-end, dual-core CPU intended for use in advanced gaming and multimedia PCs that will retail for total systems prices of $1,500 and up.
Intel's formal disclosure Monday will kick off shipments of PCs to end users. Dell this week announced plans for two models equipped with the Pentium Processor Extreme Edition model 840. Alienware is expected to unveil a PC of its own Monday.
Intel's desktop dual-core roadmap includes three other processors designated Pentium D. They are the models 820, 830, and 840, with clock speeds of 2.8 GHz, 3.0 GHz, and 3.2 GHz, respectively. All have 800 MHz front-side buses and dual L2 caches of 1 MB in capacity. The processors also support Intel's EM64T 64-bit instruction-set extensions.
"We will ship millions of dual cores this year," Intel's Love added.
I get to look at those designs when they don't pass muster at TSMC. They keep me hopping with things that break one tool or another. They are some very tenacious engineers trying to get things fabbed. Our tools are in a gateway all submitted designs go through.
TSMC is above 400GB per layer with their fully-OPC'd chips.
Whatever It Takes (2000)
Directed by David Raynr
Writing credits (WGA) Mark Schwahn (written by)
Genre: Comedy / Drama / Romance (more)
Tagline: How low will they go to get the girls of their dreams?
Plot Outline: A modern-day remake of the Cyrano DeBergerac tale.
Unfortunately, there's a world of extra difficulty in this exotic technology, as compared to silicon.
There are some leakage issues with the smaller technologies at TSMC ...
I'm not quite ready to have the dirt shoveled in on me, but if some kindly soul would bring me a beer IV-drip I would mention them in my will.
Could be -- it's got arsenic and phosphorus in it.
TI TTL book - orange
Signetics - Blue and white
Try dual 2901 bit slice processors ... BTW thats the urocessor core that ran the Galileo space probes computer which is/ (actually was) called an ATAC 8 ... I know cause I was on the project. The 286 would be a Kray to an ATAC 8
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