IBM, AMD Work to Shrink Chips
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Extended collaboration could result in chips built on 32-nanometer technology.
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Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. are revving up for what they see as the next big step in the evolution of x86 processorsâthe introduction of dual processing cores.
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Advanced Micro DevicesÂ (AMD) will implement the strained silicon manufacturing technique on its upcoming 90-nanometer processors as well as 130-nanometer processors released this quarter, an AMD spokesman said Friday.
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IBM and Advanced Micro Devices have tacked a three-year extension onto their December 2002 collaboration agreement that could see the two companies work on chip-making technologies based on a 32-nanometer process.
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(InfoWorld) - As Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) race toward smaller, faster chips, the fierce competition is taking its toll as both companies struggle to maintain profit margins by using more efficient manufacturing. At the tiny scale of 45-nanometer transistors and wires, a single speck of dust on a 300-millimeter silicon wafer can destroy an entire processor. Lower manufacturing yields cut into a company's profit margin, reducing the number of functional chips they can sell from each wafer. "As an industry, we're running out of gas at 45-nanometer geometry," said Nick Kepler, vice president of logic technology development for AMD. "We've been unable to scale the size as much as we used to because of leakage. We're still putting transistors closer together, but not shrinking the gates. So geometry shrinks can hurt you now, which they haven't in the past." One problem is that 65-nm and 45-nm chip components have shrunk so far that they are now smaller than the wavelength of the light used to carve those features onto silicon chips. To fight that trend,Â AMD and IBM Corp. said they will use three new technologies to boost manufacturing efficiency. By the second half of 2008, AMD expects to be producing 45-nm chips using immersion lithography, ultra-low-k interconnect dielectrics, and enhanced transistor strain. The companies made the announcement at the International Electron Device Meeting in San Francisco. By inserting liquid instead of air between the projection lens and the wafer, AMD and IBM can reduce the wavelength of the light, giving them a 40 percent gain in resolution compared to dry lithography and allowing them to sell a higher percentage of the hundreds of chips on every wafer, Kepler said. Likewise, IBM plans to produce 65-nm server chips by the second half of 2007, then shrink both server and gaming chips to 45-nm at some point in the future, said Gary Patton, vice president of technology development for IBM's semiconductor research and development center. AMD and IBM have cooperated on chip development since 2003, and last year extended their contract through 2011 to reach the 32-nm and 22-nm chip generations. In response, Intel says that it beat AMD to the market with 65-nm chip sales by more than a year, andÂ has already begun producing samples of its 45-nm "Penryn" quad-core chipÂ for notebooks, desktops and servers. Intel plans to ship those chips in the second half of 2007. Even if AMD improves its manufacturing, Intel is poised to continue its lead in shrinking chip geometries because it has shorter gate lengths and SRAM (static RAM) cell sizes, said Rob Willoner, a technology analyst with Intel's technology and manufacturing group. "People have different meanings when they talk about the 65-nm process. There's not an industry standard," he said. AMD's Opteron chip was a commercial success because its excellent design compensated for poor dimensions at the 90-nm scale, he said. Chips with a greater cache of local memory stored in SRAM cells can avoid the time-intensive process of retrieving data from external sources. At the same conference in San Francisco this week, Intel announced plans to use "floating-body cells" to further increase the amount of on-chip memory, according to published reports. Despite the manufacturing challenges, chip companies continue to build smaller features because of the tremendous performance benefits. By shrinking from 90 nm to 65 nm, Intel chips have double the transistor density while reducing leakage five-fold (at constant performance) and requiring 30 percent less switching power. Â
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A smaller and more efficient design could help the chipmaker better compete.
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p2pnet.net News:- AMD and IBM say theyâve developed a unique technology that results in up to a 24% transistor speed increase at the same power levels as similar transistors made without it.
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IBM Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) have tacked a three-year extension onto their December 2002 collaboration agreement that could see the two companies work on chip-making technologies based on a 32 nanometer process. The agreement was set to expire at the end of 2005, but now extends until Dec. 31, 2008.
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IBM researchers today said they have successfully demonstrated a new technique for improving transistor performance that will help the company build smaller, more powerful chips in the next decade.
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) may yet team up with another chip maker for the construction of a semiconductor fabrication plant (fab) to expand its manufacturing capacity for microprocessors, despite shelving similar plans in 2003, according to a senior company executive.
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A new semiconductor alloy jointly developed by IBM and its partners will spur the development of faster and smaller memory chips. The companies say the advancements would lead to smaller chips than currently possible with flash memory.
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By John Markoff  Scientists at IBM and two partner companies have developed a promising material that they believe will lead to a new kind of computer memory chip capable of meeting the world's growing appetite for storing digital music, pictures and video.
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IBM is tweaking its semiconductor technology to help extend the performance of its servers and enterprise PCs, the company said Monday.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. Semiconductor company Intel says it has made a breakthrough development in shrinking the size of chips. The Santa Clara-based company announced today it has created a fully functional 70 megabit
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Upcoming chips will lead to relatively inexpensive hardware, company says.
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IBM and chip design firm Mediatek are collaborating on ultra-fast chip sets for the consumer market.
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The chipmaker appears to have met its most recent deadline for production of the smaller-featured chips.