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IBMs CMOS 9S
TigeR writes "I saw over at 3DNews that IBM has just unvieled some new chipmaking technology. " Its called CMOS 99:"copper wiring, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) transistors and improved, "low-k dielectric" " All this and 0.13 microns. Smaller chips with more punch using less electricity. Everybody wins. Gimme now.
I still think Pringles lead in chip technology. How do they make them so perfect?
GONE FISHING
The IBMlogic and DRAM processes are somewhat separated because they are drive by different needs. DRAM is driven almost exclusively by density and cost. Logic is driven by performance and wirability. The big sharing point between the two is in the photolithography development.
Incidentally, DRAM is unlikely to move into SOI any time soon, because the raw wafers have too many defects. For ordinary circuits that class of defects doesn't really matter, but when you're trying to store fewer than 50,000 electrons for 64,000,000 nS, they can kill.
DRAM is much better off in bulk or epi silicon, rather than SOI. Besides, there's so much density and cost pressure that relatively crude, slow devices are used. Even if one wanted to pay for faster transistors, it wouldn't do you much good. The paramount need to shut off the switch into the DRAM cell (so it can hold that 0 or 1) means that particular transistor *can't* be optimized for performance, and that one link can quickly become the performance-dominating factor. In other words, it isn't terribly cost-effective for an ordinary DRAM to pay for fast transistors.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
You can find more information from IBM here and here.