'Sticky' silicon could speed data
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Data speeds could get a boost from Intel breakthrough into processors that make and manipulate light.
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New chip will cut the time required to transfer content onto those devices.
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Breaking the speed barrier of traditional flash memory, Intel and Micron Thursday announced a new flash memory architecture that increases the data transfer rates in consumer electronics by cutting the bottlenecks affecting conventional NAND flash memory.IM Flash Technologies, a joint venture between Intel and Micron, has developed an 8Gb SLC (single-level cell) high-speed NAND chip which can reach read speeds up to 200MBps and write speeds of up to 100MBps, which could mean faster data transfer between devices like solid-state drives and video cards.&quot;With the popularity of digital video cameras and video-on-demand services, high speed NAND can enable a high-definition movie to be transferred five times faster than conventional NAND,&quot; said Kirstin Bordner, a spokeswoman for Micron.Conventional NAND flash memory from Micron and other players currently transfer data at read rates of 40MBps, with write rates of about 20MBps.The speed improvements resulted from changes made to the NAND architecture and improvements in the read-write circuitry, Bordner said.This chip&#39;s architecture achieves the speed defined in the ONFI (Open NAND Flash Interface) 2.0 specification, according to Micron. Micron was one of the founders of the ONFI Working Group in 2006, and other member companies include Hynix Semiconductor, Intel, Phison Electronics, Sony and STMicroelectronics.Micron is now sampling the high-speed NAND component, with mass production expected to commence in the second half of 2008, the company said.Products based on the ONFI 2.0 specification have been under development and were expected, said Joseph Unsworth, a principal analyst at Gartner.&quot;It wasn&#39;t anything that wasn&#39;t expected. We knew that it was coming out,&quot; Unsworth said.The technology could see an immediate future for use in video and high-end photography devices that require flash memory with quick transfer speeds and reliable data retention, Unsworth said. However, it will be priced at a premium and only multimedia enthusiasts looking for high-performance flash memory would be willing buyers, Unsworth said.As prices stabilize, it will reach mainstream devices like MP3 players and digital cameras, but that could be a long time away, he said.The new flash technology from Micron and Intel could also face competition from Samsung and Toshiba, the world&#39;s top flash vendors, who combined represent 60 percent of products supplied in the NAND flash market. The two companies last year signed an agreement to share specifications to develop faster and more robust NAND interfaces, Unsworth said.While both factions will ultimately deliver high-performance flash technology to consumers, they need to unite under one banner to ease the development of high-speed flash technology. The market is split in half, and it needs one standard voice to simplify the development of flash memory for manufacturers, Unsworth said.
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(InfoWorld) - Researchers from Intel and the University of California at Santa Barbara have found a way to build low-cost "laser chips" that could eventually shuttle data around PCs at much higher speeds than today's copper wire interconnects. The researchers combined the properties of a compound semiconductor material called indium phosphide, which emits light constantly, and silicon, which can be used to amplify and direct that light. They sandwiched the materials together to create a single device that can be manufactured using standard chip-making techniques. The breakthrough, announced Monday, is significant because it could help the interconnect technologies that carry data between components in PCs and servers to keep pace with the rapid advances in processing power of the chips themselves, the researchers said. "This could bring low-cost, terabit-level optical 'data pipes' inside future computers and help make possible a new era of high-performance computing applications," said Mario Paniccia, director of Intel's Photonics Technology Lab, in a statement. The work may be several years away from commercialization, but the researchers expect eventually to be able to put dozens or even hundreds of lasers on a single chip, they said. Indium phosphide is already widely used to make lasers for fiber optic networks, but the cost of assembling and aligning the lasers makes them too expensive for the high-volume PC business. Silicon, on the other hand, can amplify and control light and could be used more affordably, but it is not an efficient generator of light itself. The researchers figured out a way to combine the two materials to build a "hybrid silicon laser" that can be manufactured using Intel's standard manufacturing techniques, keeping costs relatively low. To make the silicon laser they created a thin oxide layer roughly 25 atoms thick on the surface of each material. They then heated the oxide and pressed the two layers together, forming a single chip with a "glass glue" between them. Applying a voltage to the device generates light from the indium phosphide, which passes through the joining layer to be guided and controlled by the silicon. The laser light can send data between computer components at extremely high speed. This can be done using a "silicon optical modulator," which effectively turns the laser beam on and off at very high speeds to represent the 1s and 0s of computer code. Intel has already demonstrated a silicon modulator that can transmit data at up to 10Gb per second. Figuring out how to make the hybrid silicon laser was the last big barrier to using silicon-based optical devices in computers and data centers, the researchers said.
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By exploiting the physics of how light reflects off of pits in a plastic surface, researchers have come up with a method for storing 1,000 gigabytes of data on a DVD-size disk.
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A look at some of the technologies that could allow the silicon industry to deliver faster, cheaper chips.
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Companies will use strained silicon to boost transistor speed.
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Transistor radios tinier than a grain  of sand, made using nanotechnology, can not only tune in to the  traffic report, but may end up outperforming current  silicon-based electronics, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
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Slim gains from low-latency RAM don't justify a steep price.
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In an advance that could lead to lighter spacecraft and smarter cars, researchers have developed a new technique for producing a high-quality semiconductor that&#39;s much more resistant to extreme conditions than the silicon found in most of today&#39;s
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Semiconductor chips that can manage a good bit of their own upkeep are moving closer to reality.
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Researchers say they have created a silicon-based chip that can produce laser beams to send data between chips.
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A breakthrough in the way scientists make crystals could lead to a replacement for silicon in chips for devices.
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A 40-nanometer chip production technique is key to making chips smaller, faster, more powerful, and cheaper to produce.
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Nanotechnology could enable engineers to combine the functions of memory chips and disk drives on a device the size of a dime.
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Researchers say they've created a nifty optics-on-a-chip device that overcomes a major obstacle in harnessing the full power and speed of light waves. By the Associated Press.
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We&#39;ve known about &quot;strained silicon&quot; for a while--but now there&#39;s a better way to do it. Straining silicon improves chip performance.