IBM, AMD Speed Chips by Straining Silicon Wafers
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Researchers at IBM IBM.N and  Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD.N have improved a chip-making  technology called strained silicon, boosting  semiconductor  performance at a time when such gains are increasingly hard to  come by, the companies said on Sunday.
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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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A look at some of the technologies that could allow the silicon industry to deliver faster, cheaper chips.
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Matrix Semiconductor's memory chips have several layers of transistors rather than a single plane.
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Chip maker plans for smaller, faster, less power-hungry processors.
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It looks like a partnership between AMD, IBM, Sony and Toshiba has produced a new technology which allows faster transistor speeds with the same energy consumption.
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The firm is planning new ways to shrink transistors and increase chip speed. Could "spintronics" replace silicon-based technology?
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IBM and AMD have jointly developed a new method for implementing strained silicon technology on both positive and negative transistors, a technique they said could improve transistor speeds by as much as 24%.
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A new faster version &#39;strained silicon&#39; has been developed by IBM and AMD. The companies are claiming that the resulting transistors are up to 24 per cent faster than existing processes.
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IBM and Advanced Micro DevicesÂ (AMD) have jointly developed a new method for implementing strained silicon technology on both positive and negative transistors, the companies are expected to announce Monday.
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Foundry partner gears up for second-generation 90nm Efficeons
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Advanced Micro Devices and IBM will work together to devise chip-manufacturing technology for three additional years, a deal that will bring about a quarter of a billion to IBM over four years and give AMD access to cutting-edge chip inventions.
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Your processor can now run 24% faster at the same power levels based on the new strained silicon transistor technology, as claimed by IBM and AMD today.
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IBM announced Tuesday that it has created a process allowing its manufacturing facilities to repurpose otherwise scrap semiconductor wafers.Since the silicon wafers need to be nearly flawless in order to be used in computers, mobile phones, video games, and other consumer electronics, the imperfect ones are normally erased with acidic chemicals and discarded. IBM had been sandblasting its castoffs&#160;to remove proprietary material. Some of the pieces, called &quot;monitors,&quot; are reused for test purposes.The new process cleans the silicon pieces with water and an abrasive pad, leaving them in better condition for reuse. The entire process to clean an 8-inch wafer is about one minute. Eric White, the inventor of the process, said that IBM can now get five or six monitor wafers out of one that would have been crushed and discarded. The cleaned wafers can also be sold to the solar-cell industry, which has a high demand for the silicon material to use in solar panels. White said that shortage would need to be &quot;extreme&quot; to use the wafers in consumer electronics and that IBM does not plan to do so.The IBM site in Burlington, Vt., has been using the process and reported an annual savings in 2006 of more than $500,000. Expansion of the new technique has begun at IBM&#39;s site in East Fishkill, N.Y., and 2007 savings estimates are more than $1.5 million. The Vermont and New York plants are IBM&#39;s only semiconductor manufacturing sites.Chris Voce, an analyst with Forrester Resarch, does not anticipate savings for the end-user, but added, &quot;When a semiconductor company can improve its process and drive efficiency into their manufacturing process, that&#39;s always great for their margins, but it&#39;s even better when there are broader benefits for the environment.&quot; Annually, IBM estimates that the semiconductor industry discards as many as 3 million wafers worldwide.IBM plans to patent the new process and provide details for the semiconductor manufacturing industry.
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IBM today said it has demonstrated a technique that triples the performance of a standard semiconductor transistor with a process that is compatible with conventional CMOS technology.
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Chip power has increased dramatically in the last few years, thanks to new multicore processors from Intel, AMD and other chip makers. The problem is, software developers who understand how to utilize the new hardware are in short supply.
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AMD and IBM today announced that they have developed a new and unique strained silicon transistor technology aimed at improving processor performance and power efficiency.